TWO ACCURATE TIME-DELAY DISTANCES FROM STRONG LENSING: IMPLICATIONS FOR COSMOLOGY

By Sherry H. Suyu, M. Auger, Stefan Hilbert, P. J. Marshall, M. Tewes, T. Treu, C. Fassnacht, Leon V. E. Koopmans, Dominique Sluse, R. Blandford and 2 more. 2012

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Strong gravitational lenses with measured time delays between the multiple images and models of the lens mass distribution allow a one-step determination of the time-delay distance, and thus a measure of cosmological parameters. We present a blind analysis of the gravitational lens RXJ1131−1231 incorporating (1) the newly measured time delays from COSMOGRAIL, the COSmological MOnitoring of GRAvItational Lenses, (2) archival Hubble Space Telescope imaging of the lens system, (3) a new velocity-dispersion measurement of the lens galaxy of 323 ± 20 km s−1 based on Keck spectroscopy, and (4) a characterization of the line-of-sight structures via observations of the lens' environment and ray tracing through the Millennium Simulation. Our blind analysis is designed to prevent experimenter bias. The joint analysis of the data sets allows a time-delay distance measurement to 6% precision that takes into account all known systematic uncertainties. In combination with the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe seven-year (WMAP7) data set in flat wCDM cosmology, our unblinded cosmological constraints for RXJ1131−1231 are , Ωde = 0.79 ± 0.03, and . We find the results to be statistically consistent with those from the analysis of the gravitational lens B1608+656, permitting us to combine the inferences from these two lenses. The joint constraints from the two lenses and WMAP7 are , , and in flat wCDM, and , , and in open ΛCDM. Time-delay lenses constrain especially tightly the Hubble constant H0 (5.7% and 4.0% respectively in wCDM and open ΛCDM) and curvature of the universe. The overall information content is similar to that of Baryon Acoustic Oscillation experiments. Thus, they complement well other cosmological probes, and provide an independent check of unknown systematics. Our measurement of the Hubble constant is completely independent of those based on the local distance ladder method, providing an important consistency check of the standard cosmological model and of general relativity.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ff88991794d671ab47b841df99eda02128b70507

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Citations in the corpus

H0LiCOW – XIII. A 2.4 per cent measurement of H0 from lensed quasars: 5.3σ tension between early- and late-Universe probes (2019, methodology): “We quantify the consistency by using the Bayes factor (or evidence ratio) F in favour of a simultaneous fit of the lenses using a common set of cosmological parameters (e.g. Marshall, Rajguru & Slosar 2006; Suyu et al. 2013; Bonvin et al. 2017).”
A 2.4% DETERMINATION OF THE LOCAL VALUE OF THE HUBBLE CONSTANT (2016, methodology): “The most precise of these is from the analysis of two strong gravitational lenses and yields H0=75±4 km s −1Mpc−1 (Suyu et al. 2013), a result that is both independent of ours and has been reaffirmed by an independent lensing analysis (Birrer et al. 2015).”
H0LiCOW - IV. Lens mass model of HE 0435-1223 and blind measurement of its time-delay distance for cosmology (2016, methodology): “HE 0435−1223 is the third H0LiCOW system analyzed in this manner, following B1608+656 (Suyu et al. 2010) and RXJ1131−1231 (Suyu et al. 2013, 2014).”
Galaxy Masses: A Review (2013, background): “This effect is usually accounted for as external shear and convergence and result in typical corrections of order a few percent to the strong lensing inference (e.g. Keeton et al. 1997; Treu et al. 2009; Suyu et al. 2010, 2013).”
COSMOLOGY FROM GRAVITATIONAL LENS TIME DELAYS AND PLANCK DATA (2013, methodology): “Assuming Ωk = 0 and w = −1, H0 = 67.3± 1.2 km s−1Mpc−1, in tension with that measured by various lower-redshift methods (e.g., Riess et al. 2011; Freedman et al. 2012; Chávez et al. 2012; Suyu et al. 2013).”
Mass-sheet degeneracy, power-law models and external convergence: Impact on the determination of the Hubble constant from gravitational lensing (2013, methodology): “Therefore, the accuracy of H0 claimed in Suyu et al. (2010, 2013a) is not due to MSD breaking by stellar dynamical information.”
H0LiCOW – I. H0 Lenses in COSMOGRAIL's wellspring: program overview (2016, methodology): “Details of the LRIS observations for B1608+656 are in Suyu et al. (2010), for RXJ1131−1231 are in Suyu et al. (2013), and for HE0435−1223 are in H0LiCOW Paper IV; other observations are in forthcoming publications.”
TDCOSMO IV: Hierarchical time-delay cosmography -- joint inference of the Hubble constant and galaxy density profiles (2020, methodology): “…1997; Schechter et al. 1997; Kochanek 2003; Koopmans et al. 2003; Saha et al. 2006; Read et al. 2007; Oguri 2007; Coles 2008; Vuissoz et al. 2008; Suyu et al. 2010, 2013, 2014; Fadely et al. 2010; Sereno & Paraficz 2014; Rathna et al. 2015; Birrer et al. 2016, 2019; Wong et al. 2017; Rusu et al.…”
Time delay cosmography (2016, methodology): “At the moment, comparison between the results of independent sys- tems (Suyu et al. 2013) seems to suggest that this source of uncertainty is smaller than the estimated random uncertainty.”
H0LiCOW - V. New COSMOGRAIL time delays of HE 0435-1223: H0 to 3.8 per cent precision from strong lensing in a flat ΛCDM model (2016, methodology): “Following Marshall et al. (2006) and Suyu et al. (2013), we compute the Bayes factor F , or evidence ratio, in favor of a simultaneous fit of the lenses using a common set of cosmological parameters.”
Measuring the Hubble constant with Type Ia supernovae as near-infrared standard candles (2017, background): “0.5; e.g., Riess et al. 2009, 2011; Freedman et al. Send offprint requests to: S. Dhawan 2012; Suyu et al. 2013; Bonvin et al. 2017), along with recent progress in CMB measurements (Bennett et al. 2013; Hinshaw et al. 2013; Planck Collaboration et al. 2016a) hint at mild tension (2–2.5σ) between…”
MontePython 3: Boosted MCMC sampler and other features (2018, background): “1 SC [86] WiggleZ WiggleZ power spectrum Galaxy Clust.”
NINE-YEAR WILKINSON MICROWAVE ANISOTROPY PROBE (WMAP) OBSERVATIONS: COSMOLOGICAL PARAMETER RESULTS (2012, methodology): “An independent analysis of non-flat models based on time-delay measurements of two strong gravitational lens systems, combined with seven-year WMAP data, give consistent and nearly competitive constraints of Ωk = 0.003 +0.005 −0.006 (Suyu et al. 2013).”