A comparison of the strong lensing properties of the Sersic and the NFW profiles

Abstract

We investigate the strong lensing properties of the Sersic profile as an alternative to the NFW profile, focusing on applications to lens modelling of clusters. Given an underlying Sersic dark matter profile, we study whether an NFW profile can provide an acceptable fit to strong lensing constraints in the form of single or multiple measured Einstein radii. We conclude that although an NFW profile that fits the lensing constraints can be found in many cases, the derived parameters may be biased. In particular, we find that for n~2, which corresponds to massive clusters, the mass at r_200 of the best fit NFW is overestimated (by a factor of ~2) and the concentration is very low (c~2). The differences are important enough to warrant the inclusion of Sersic profile for future analysis of strong lensing clusters.

19 pages (single column format), 11 figures. Accepted for publication by JCAP

References in corpus (4)

• Combining Strong and Weak Gravitational Lensing in Abell 1689
• Parametric Strong Gravitational Lensing Analysis of Abell 1689
• Extinction Curves of Lensing Galaxies out to z=1
• Quasar Microlensing: when compact masses mimic smooth matter

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