Multiply-imaged time-varying sources behind galaxy clusters - Comparing FRBs to QSOs, SNe, and GRBs

Abstract

With upcoming (continuum) surveys of high-resolution radio telescopes, detection rates of fast radio bursts (FRBs) might approach $10^5$ per sky per day by future extremely large observatories, such as the possible extension of the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) to a phase 2 array. Depending on the redshift distribution of FRBs and using the repeating FRB121102 as a model, we calculate a detection rate of multiply-imaged FRBs with their multiply-imaged hosts caused by the distribution of galaxy-cluster scale gravitational lenses of the order of $10^{-4}$ per square degree per year for a minimum total flux of the host of 10 $\mu$Jy at 1.4 GHz for SKA phase 2. Our comparison of estimated detection rates for quasars, supernovae, gamma ray bursts, and FRBs shows that multiple images of FRBs could be more numerous than those of gamma ray bursts and supernovae and as numerous as multiple images of quasars. Time delays between the multiple images of an FRB break degeneracies in model-based and model-independent lens reconstructions as other time-varying sources do, yet without a microlensing bias as FRBs are more point-like and have shorter duration times. We estimate the relative imprecision of FRB time-delay measurements to be $10^{-10}$ for time delays on the order of 100 days for galaxy-cluster scale lenses, yielding more precise (local) lens properties than time delays from the other time-varying sources. Using the lens modelling software Grale, we show the increase in accuracy and precision of the reconstructed scaled surface mass density map of a simulated cluster-scale lens when adding time delays for one set of multiple images to the set of observational constraints.

16 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics, comments welcome

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• Improved time-delay lens modelling and $H_0$ inference with transient sources
• Prospects of strongly lensed repeating fast radio bursts: complementary constraints on dark energy evolution
• Free-form Grale lens inversion of galaxy clusters with up to 1000 multiple images
• Generalised model-independent characterisation of strong gravitational lenses VI: the origin of the formalism intrinsic degeneracies and their influence on $H_0$
• Searching for Gravitational Waves with Strongly Lensed Repeating Fast Radio Bursts
• Generalised model-independent characterisation of strong gravitational lenses V: reconstructing the lensing distance ratio by supernovae for a general Friedmann universe
• Extended lens reconstructions with Grale: exploiting time domain, substructural and weak-lensing information
• Fast Radio Burst Tomography of the Unseen Universe
• Gravitational Microlensing Time Delays at High Optical Depth: Image Parities and the Temporal Properties of Fast Radio Bursts
• A new strategy for matching observed and simulated lensing galaxies