TDCOSMO VIII: Cosmological distance measurements in light of the mass-sheet degeneracy -- forecasts from strong lensing and IFU stellar kinematics

Abstract

Time-delay strong lensing (TDSL) is a powerful probe of the current expansion rate of the Universe. However, in light of the discrepancies between early and late-time cosmological studies, efforts revolve around the characterisation of systematic uncertainties in the methods. Here, we focus on the mass-sheet degeneracy (MSD), which is considered a significant source of systematics in TDSL, and aim to assess the constraining power provided by IFU stellar kinematics. We approximate the MSD with a cored, two-parameter extension to the lensing mass profiles (with core radius $r_{\mathrm{c}}$ and mass-sheet parameter ${\lambda }_{\mathrm{int}}$). In addition, we utilise mock IFU stellar kinematics of time-delay strong lenses, given the prospects of obtaining such data with JWST. We construct joint strong lensing and stellar dynamical models, where the time delays, mock imaging and IFU observations are used to constrain the mass profile of lens galaxies, and yield joint constraints on the time-delay distance ($D_{\Delta t}$) and angular diameter distance ($D_{\mathrm{d}}$) to the lens. We find that mock JWST-like stellar kinematics constrain the internal mass sheet and limit its contribution to the uncertainties of $D_{\Delta t}$ and $D_{\mathrm{d}}$, each at the < 4% level, without assumptions on the background cosmological model. These distance constraints would translate to a < 4% precision measurement on $H_0$ in flat $\Lambda CDM$ for a single lens. Our study shows that IFU stellar kinematics of time-delay strong lenses will be key in lifting the MSD on a per lens basis, assuming reasonable core sizes. However, even in the limit of infinite $r_{\mathrm{c}}$, where $D_{\Delta t}$ is degenerate with ${\lambda }_{\mathrm{int}}$, stellar kinematics of the deflector, time delays and imaging data will provide powerful constraints on $D_{\mathrm{d}}$, which becomes the dominant source of information in the cosmological inference.

arXiv commentsubmitted to A&A

References in corpus (69)

• emcee: The MCMC Hammer
• A Universal Density Profile from Hierarchical Clustering
• The Structure of Cold Dark Matter Halos
• A Comprehensive Measurement of the Local Value of the Hubble Constant with 1 km/s/Mpc Uncertainty from the Hubble Space Telescope and the SH0ES Team
• In the Realm of the Hubble tension $-$ a Review of Solutions
• Adaptive spatial binning of integral-field spectroscopic data using Voronoi tessellations
• Tensions between the Early and the Late Universe
• H0LiCOW XIII. A 2.4% measurement of $H_0$ from lensed quasars: $5.3\sigma$ tension between early and late-Universe probes
• Early Dark Energy Can Resolve The Hubble Tension
• The Carnegie-Chicago Hubble Program. VIII. An Independent Determination of the Hubble Constant Based on the Tip of the Red Giant Branch
• The Atlas3D project - XV. Benchmark for early-type galaxies scaling relations from 260 dynamical models: mass-to-light ratio, dark matter, Fundamental Plane and Mass Plane
• The Hubble Hunter's Guide
• The SAURON project -- X. The orbital anisotropy of elliptical and lenticular galaxies: revisiting the (V/sigma,epsilon) diagram with integral-field stellar kinematics
• Measuring the inclination and mass-to-light ratio of axisymmetric galaxies via anisotropic Jeans models of stellar kinematics
• Efficient Multi-Gaussian Expansion of galaxies
• The Sloan Lens ACS Survey. IV: the mass density profile of early-type galaxies out to 100 effective radii
• The Expansion of the Universe is Faster than Expected
• The SAURON project - III. Integral-field absorption-line kinematics of 48 elliptical and lenticular galaxies
• Dissecting the Gravitational Lens B1608+656. II. Precision Measurements of the Hubble Constant, Spatial Curvature, and the Dark Energy Equation of State
• H0LiCOW - IX. Cosmographic analysis of the doubly imaged quasar SDSS 1206+4332 and a new measurement of the Hubble constant
• TDCOSMO IV: Hierarchical time-delay cosmography -- joint inference of the Hubble constant and galaxy density profiles
• Two accurate time-delay distances from strong lensing: Implications for cosmology
• The Megamaser Cosmology Project. XIII. Combined Hubble constant constraints
• H0LiCOW I. $H_0$ Lenses in COSMOGRAIL's Wellspring: Program Overview
• Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: A Precise H0 Measurement from DES Y1, BAO, and D/H Data
• A Bayesian analysis of regularised source inversions in gravitational lensing
• A SHARP view of H0LiCOW: $H_0$ from three time-delay gravitational lens systems with adaptive optics imaging
• Mass-sheet degeneracy, power-law models and external convergence: Impact on the determination of the Hubble constant from gravitational lensing
• STRIDES: a 3.9 per cent measurement of the Hubble constant from the strong lens system DES J0408-5354
• Time Delay Cosmography
• Cosmology from gravitational lens time delays and Planck data
• TDCOSMO. I. An exploration of systematic uncertainties in the inference of $H_0$ from time-delay cosmography
• H0LiCOW IV. Lens mass model of HE 0435-1223 and blind measurement of its time-delay distance for cosmology
• Stellar kinematics across the Hubble sequence in the CALIFA survey: General properties and aperture corrections
• A precise extragalactic test of General Relativity
• Fast calculation of a family of elliptical mass gravitational lens models
• COSMOGRAIL: the COSmological MOnitoring of GRAvItational Lenses XIII: Time delays and 9-yr optical monitoring of the lensed quasar RX J1131-1231
• COSMOGRAIL: the COSmological MOnitoring of GRAvItational Lenses XI. Techniques for time delay measurement in presence of microlensing
• A quadruply imaged quasar with an optical Einstein ring candidate: 1RXS J113155.4-123155
• H0LiCOW III. Quantifying the effect of mass along the line of sight to the gravitational lens HE 0435-1223 through weighted galaxy counts
• H0LiCOW XII. Lens mass model of WFI2033-4723 and blind measurement of its time-delay distance and $H_0$
• COSMOGRAIL XVI: Time delays for the quadruply imaged quasar DES J0408-5354 with high-cadence photometric monitoring
• A New Hybrid Framework to Efficiently Model Lines of Sight to Gravitational Lenses
• GAIA Cepheid parallaxes and 'Local Hole' relieve $H_0$ tension
• The SWELLS survey. IV. Precision measurements of the stellar and dark matter distributions in a spiral lens galaxy
• COSMOGRAIL XIX: Time delays in 18 strongly lensed quasars from 15 years of optical monitoring
• Efficient solution of the anisotropic spherically-aligned axisymmetric Jeans equations of stellar hydrodynamics for galactic dynamics
• Quantifying Environmental and Line-of-Sight Effects in Models of Strong Gravitational Lens Systems
• Over-constrained Gravitational Lens Models and the Hubble Constant
• TDCOSMO V: strategies for precise and accurate measurements of the Hubble constant with strong lensing
• Degeneracies and scaling relations in general power-law models for gravitational lenses
• The structural and dynamical properties of compact elliptical galaxies
• Gravitational lenses as cosmic rulers: density of dark matter and dark energy from time delays and velocity dispersions
• A measurement of the Hubble constant from angular diameter distances to two gravitational lenses
• Time-delay Cosmography: Increased Leverage with Angular Diameter Distances
• Could quasar lensing time delays hint to a core component in halos, instead of H0 tension?
• H0LiCOW II. Spectroscopic survey and galaxy-group identification of the strong gravitational lens system HE0435-1223
• Time-delay cosmographic forecasts with strong lensing and JWST stellar kinematics
• SHARP - III: First Use Of Adaptive Optics Imaging To Constrain Cosmology With Gravitational Lens Time Delays
• The Einstein Cross: constraint on dark matter from stellar dynamics and gravitational lensing
• H0LiCOW VIII. A weak lensing measurement of the external convergence in the field of the lensed quasar HE0435$-$1223
• On the Choice of Lens Density Profile in Time Delay Cosmography
• TDCOSMO. IX. Systematic comparison between lens modelling software programs: time delay prediction for WGD 2038-4008
• Cosmological distance indicators
• Over-constrained Models of Time Delay Lenses Redux: How the Angular Tail Wags the Radial Dog
• Gravitational lensing $H_0$ tension from ultralight axion galactic cores
• H0LiCOW XI. A weak lensing measurement of the external convergence in the field of the lensed quasar B1608+656 using HST and Subaru deep imaging
• TDCOSMO VI: Distance Measurements in Time-delay Cosmography under the Mass-sheet transformation
• Gravitational lenses in arbitrary space-times

Cited by in corpus (13)

• The CosmoVerse White Paper: Addressing observational tensions in cosmology with systematics and fundamental physics
• Strong gravitational lensing and microlensing of supernovae
• TDCOSMO 2025: Cosmological constraints from strong lensing time delays
• No rungs attached: A distance-ladder free determination of the Hubble constant through type II supernova spectral modelling
• TDCOSMO. XVI. Measurement of the Hubble Constant from the Lensed Quasar WGD2038$-$4008
• Exploiting the diversity of modeling methods to probe systematic biases in strong lensing analyses
• Foreground biases in strong gravitational lensing
• Host group degeneracy in gravitational lensing time delay determination of $H_0$
• HOLISMOKES -- XIV. Time-delay and differential dust extinction determination with lensed type II supernova color curves
• Line-of-sight effects on double source plane lenses
• Caustic area biases and how to deal with them
• A Robust Bayesian Meta-Analysis for Estimating the Hubble Constant via Time Delay Cosmography
• HOLISMOKES -- XVIII. Cosmology with strongly lensed type II supernovae: Effects of instrumental setups on $H_0$