A lensed radio jet at milli-arcsecond resolution I: Bayesian comparison of parametric lens models

Abstract

We investigate the mass structure of a strong gravitational lens galaxy at $z=0.350$, taking advantage of the milli-arcsecond (mas) angular resolution of very long baseline interferometric (VLBI) observations. In the first analysis of its kind at this resolution, we jointly infer the lens model parameters and pixellated radio source surface brightness. We consider several lens models of increasing complexity, starting from an elliptical power-law density profile. We extend this model to include angular multipole structures, a separate stellar mass component, additional nearby field galaxies, and/or a generic external potential. We compare these models using their relative Bayesian log-evidence (Bayes factor). We find strong evidence for angular structure in the lens; our best model is comprised of a power-law profile plus multipole perturbations and external potential, with a Bayes factor of $+14984$ relative to the elliptical power-law model. It is noteworthy that the elliptical power-law mass distribution is a remarkably good fit on its own, with additional model complexity correcting the deflection angles only at the $\sim 5$ mas level. We also consider the effects of added complexity in the lens model on time-delay cosmography and flux-ratio analyses. We find that an overly simplistic power-law ellipsoid lens model can bias the measurement of $H_0$ by $\sim 3$ per cent and mimic flux ratio anomalies of $\sim 8$ per cent. Our results demonstrate the power of high-resolution VLBI observations to provide strong constraints on the inner density profiles of lens galaxies.

arXiv comment24 pages, 15 figures, 3 tables. Accepted in MNRAS

References in corpus (90)

• SciPy 1.0--Fundamental Algorithms for Scientific Computing in Python
• Array Programming with NumPy
• Planck 2015 results. XIII. Cosmological parameters
• The Structure of Cold Dark Matter Halos
• MultiNest: an efficient and robust Bayesian inference tool for cosmology and particle physics
• Detailed Structural Decomposition of Galaxy Images
• Structure and Formation of Elliptical and Spheroidal Galaxies
• How supernova feedback turns dark matter cusps into cores
• The Sloan Lens ACS Survey. X. Stellar, Dynamical, and Total Mass Correlations of Massive Early-type Galaxies
• Strong Lensing by Galaxies
• The Structure & Dynamics of Massive Early-type Galaxies: On Homology, Isothermality and Isotropy inside one Effective Radius
• Baryon effects on the internal structure of LCDM halos in the EAGLE simulations
• H0LiCOW - IX. Cosmographic analysis of the doubly imaged quasar SDSS 1206+4332 and a new measurement of the Hubble constant
• Detection of lensing substructure using ALMA observations of the dusty galaxy SDP.81
• Bayesian Strong Gravitational-Lens Modeling on Adaptive Grids: Objective Detection of Mass Substructure in Galaxies
• NIHAO IV: Core creation and destruction in dark matter density profiles across cosmic time
• Weakly Self-Interacting Dark Matter and the Structure of Dark Halos
• The influence of gas on the structure of merger remnants
• The Sloan-Lens ACS Survey II: stellar populations and internal structure of early-type lens galaxies
• A Bayesian analysis of regularised source inversions in gravitational lensing
• Two-dimensional kinematics of SLACS lenses: III. Mass structure and dynamics of early-type lens galaxies beyond z ~ 0.1
• Mass-sheet degeneracy, power-law models and external convergence: Impact on the determination of the Hubble constant from gravitational lensing
• Dwarf galaxies in CDM and SIDM with baryons: observational probes of the nature of dark matter
• H0LiCOW IV. Lens mass model of HE 0435-1223 and blind measurement of its time-delay distance for cosmology
• Tests for Substructure in Gravitational Lenses
• The behaviour of dark matter associated with 4 bright cluster galaxies in the 10kpc core of Abell 3827
• Erasing Dark Matter Cusps in Cosmological Galactic Halos with Baryons
• Impact of baryon physics on dark matter structures: a detailed simulation study of halo density profiles
• The Fundamental Plane of Gravitational Lens Galaxies and The Evolution of Early-Type Galaxies in Low Density Environments
• Evidence for dark matter contraction and a Salpeter IMF in a massive early-type galaxy
• Gravitational Lensing By Spiral Galaxies
• Dark matter halo properties of GAMA galaxy groups from 100 square degrees of KiDS weak lensing data
• Density profile of dark matter haloes and galaxies in the Horizon-AGN simulation: the impact of AGN feedback
• Cusp-core transformations induced by AGN feedback in the progenitors of cluster galaxies
• Galaxies in X-ray Groups. II. A Weak Lensing Study of Halo Centering
• Intracluster light: a luminous tracer for dark matter in clusters of galaxies
• How well can cold-dark-matter substructures account for the observed radio flux-ratio anomalies?
• The Co-Evolution of Total Density Profiles and Central Dark Matter Fractions in Simulated Early-Type Galaxies
• On the Origin of Isophotal Shapes in Elliptical Galaxies
• The Sloan Lens ACS Survey. VIII. The relation between environment and internal structure of early-type galaxies
• Two-dimensional kinematics of SLACS lenses: II. Combined lensing and dynamics analysis of early-type galaxies at z = 0.08 - 0.33
• Lens Modeling Abell 370: Crowning the Final Frontier Field with MUSE
• Low-mass halo perturbations in strong gravitational lenses at redshift z$\sim$0.5 are consistent with CDM
• 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 $H_0$
• Dissecting the Gravitational Lens B1608+656. I. Lens Potential Reconstruction
• A Spectroscopic Study of the Environments of Gravitational Lens Galaxies
• The bulge-halo conspiracy in massive elliptical galaxies: implications for the stellar initial mass function and halo response to baryonic processes
• Adaptive Semi-linear Inversion of Strong Gravitational Lens Imaging
• Fitting Gravitational Lenses: Truth or Delusion
• Over-constrained Gravitational Lens Models and the Hubble Constant
• Redshifts of the Gravitational Lenses MG0414+0534 and MG0751+2716
• Lens galaxies in the Illustris simulation: power-law models and the bias of the Hubble constant from time-delays
• TDCOSMO V: strategies for precise and accurate measurements of the Hubble constant with strong lensing
• Fuzzy Dark Matter and Dark Matter Halo Cores
• The inner structure of early-type galaxies in the Illustris simulation
• SHARP - IV. An apparent flux ratio anomaly resolved by the edge-on disc in B0712+472
• The interplay of Self-Interacting Dark Matter and baryons in shaping the halo evolution
• Values of H_0 from Models of the Gravitational Lens 0957+561
• H0LiCOW II. Spectroscopic survey and galaxy-group identification of the strong gravitational lens system HE0435-1223
• Flux-ratio anomalies from discs and other baryonic structures in the Illustris simulation
• SHARP - II. Mass structure in strong lenses is not necessarily dark matter substructure: A flux ratio anomaly from an edge-on disc
• SHARP - V. Modelling gravitationally-lensed radio arcs imaged with global VLBI observations
• Multipole Models of Four-Image Gravitational Lenses with Anomalous Flux Ratios
• Strong lensing signatures of luminous structure and substructure in early-type galaxies
• Galaxy structure with strong gravitational lensing: decomposing the internal mass distribution of massive elliptical galaxies
• A novel 3D technique to study the kinematics of lensed galaxies
• TDCOSMO. VII. Boxyness/discyness in lensing galaxies : Detectability and impact on $H_0$
• A novel approach to visibility-space modelling of interferometric gravitational lens observations at high angular resolution
• SHARP - I. A high-resolution multi-band view of the infra-red Einstein ring of JVAS B1938+666
• Cluster Bulleticity
• Over-constrained Models of Time Delay Lenses Redux: How the Angular Tail Wags the Radial Dog
• CLASS B2108+213: A new wide separation gravitational lens system
• H0LiCOW X: Spectroscopic/imaging survey and galaxy-group identification around the strong gravitational lens system WFI2033-4723
• Total density profile of massive early-type galaxies in Horizon-AGN simulation: impact of AGN feedback and comparison with observations
• Strong Gravitational Lensing with SKA
• The Gravitationally-Lensed Radio Source MG0751+2716
• The Environments of SLACS Gravitational Lenses
• Systematic errors induced by the elliptical power-law model in galaxy-galaxy strong lens modeling
• Probing a massive radio galaxy with gravitational lensing
• SARCS strong-lensing galaxy groups: II - mass-concentration relation and strong-lensing bias
• SHARP -- VI. Evidence for CO (1-0) molecular gas extended on kpc-scales in AGN star forming galaxies at high redshift
• 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
• SLITronomy: towards a fully wavelet-based strong lensing inversion technique
• Systematic errors in strong gravitational lensing reconstructions, a numerical simulation perspective
• Searching for Environmental Effects on Galaxy Kinematics in Groups and Clusters at z~1 from the ORELSE Survey
• SEAGLE--II: Constraints on feedback models in galaxy formation from massive early type strong lens galaxies
• The effect of the environment on the Faber Jackson relation
• High-resolution imaging with the International LOFAR Telescope: Observations of the gravitational lenses MG 0751+2716 and CLASS B1600+434
• Galaxy kinematics across different environments in the RXJ1347-1145 cluster complex

Cited by in corpus (21)

• A lensed radio jet at milli-arcsecond resolution II: Constraints on fuzzy dark matter from an extended gravitational arc
• Constraining resonant dark matter self-interactions with strong gravitational lenses
• Short Review of the main achievements of the Scalar Field, Fuzzy, Ultralight, Wave, BEC Dark Matter model
• Forecasts for Galaxy Formation and Dark Matter Constraints from Dwarf Galaxy Surveys
• Using wavelets to capture deviations from smoothness in galaxy-scale strong lenses
• Strong Lensing by Galaxies
• Complex angular structure of three elliptical galaxies from high-resolution ALMA observations of strong gravitational lenses
• A million-solar-mass object detected at cosmological distance using gravitational imaging
• A Bayesian Approach to Strong Lens Finding in the Era of Wide-area Surveys
• Exploiting the diversity of modeling methods to probe systematic biases in strong lensing analyses
• PSJ2107-1611: a new wide-separation, quadruply imaged lensed quasar with flux ratio anomalies
• Discovery of a radio jet in the Cloverleaf Quasar at z = 2.56
• El Gordo needs El Anzuelo: Probing the structure of cluster members with multi-band extended arcs in JWST data
• A nuclear spiral in a dusty star-forming galaxy at $z=2.78$
• SHARP -- IX. The dense, low-mass perturbers in B1938+666 and J0946+1006: implications for cold and self-interacting dark matter
• An extended and extremely thin gravitational arc from a lensed compact symmetric object at redshift 2.059
• Macromodel-free flux-ratio prediction in quadruply imaged quasars with local constraints from lensed arcs
• Investigation of mass substructure in gravitational lens system SDP.81 with ALMA long-baseline observations
• A Fuzzy Situation Eased: Cold Dark Matter with Multipoles Can Explain The Double Radio Quad Lens HS 0810+2554
• A Salpeter IMF and an NFW halo: Disentangling the dark and stellar mass of an elliptical galaxy through precise lens modelling of a double-source-plane system
• Non-halo structures and their effects on gravitationally lensed galaxies