Fast and Reliable Time Delay Estimation of Strong Lens Systems Using Method of Smoothing and Cross-Correlation
arXiv:1410.8122 · doi:10.1088/0004-637X/804/1/39
Abstract
The observable time delays between the multiple images of strong lensing systems with time variable sources can provide us with some valuable information to probe the expansion history of the Universe. Estimation of these time delays can be very challenging due to complexities of the observed data where there are seasonal gaps, various noises and systematics such as unknown microlensing effects. In this paper we introduce a novel approach to estimate the time delays for strong lensing systems implementing various statistical methods of data analysis including the method of smoothing and cross-correlation. The method we introduce in this paper has been recently used in TDC0 and TDC1 Strong Lens Time Delay Challenges and has shown its power in reliable and precise estimation of time delays dealing with data with different complexities.
23 pages, 9 figures, 3 tables, discussions extended, references added, results unchanged, matches final version published in ApJ
References in corpus (5)
- Gravitational Lens Time Delays: A Statistical Assessment of Lens Model Dependences and Implications for the Global Hubble Constant
- Strong Lens Time Delay Challenge: II. Results of TDC1
- Model Independent Reconstruction of the Expansion History of the Universe and the Properties of Dark Energy
- Crossing Statistic: Reconstructing the Expansion History of the Universe
- Next Generation Strong Lensing Time Delay Estimation with Gaussian Processes