Project Dinos I: A joint lensing-dynamics constraint on the deviation from the power law in the mass profile of massive ellipticals

Abstract

The mass distribution in massive elliptical galaxies encodes their evolutionary history, thus providing an avenue to constrain the baryonic astrophysics in their evolution. The power-law assumption for the radial mass profile in ellipticals has been sufficient to describe several observables to the noise level, including strong lensing and stellar dynamics. In this paper, we quantitatively constrained any deviation, or the lack thereof, from the power-law mass profile in massive ellipticals through joint lensing-dynamics analysis of a large statistical sample with 77 galaxy-galaxy lens systems. We performed an improved and uniform lens modelling of these systems from archival Hubble Space Telescope imaging using the automated lens modelling pipeline dolphin. We combined the lens model posteriors with the stellar dynamics to constrain the deviation from the power law after accounting for the line-of-sight lensing effects, a first for analyses on galaxy-galaxy lenses. We find that the Sloan Lens ACS Survey (SLACS) lens galaxies with a mean redshift of 0.2 are consistent with the power-law profile within 1.1$\sigma$ (2.8$\sigma$) and the Strong Lensing Legacy Survey (SL2S) lens galaxies with a mean redshift of 0.6 are consistent within 0.8$\sigma$ (2.1$\sigma$), for a spatially constant (Osipkov-Merritt) stellar anisotropy profile. We adopted the spatially constant anisotropy profile as our baseline choice based on previous dynamical observables of local ellipticals. However, spatially resolved stellar kinematics of lens galaxies are necessary to differentiate between the two anisotropy models. Future studies will use our lens models to constrain the mass distribution individually in the dark matter and baryonic components.

31 pages, 20 figures, 9 tables. This version: accepted to MNRAS

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Cited by in corpus (28)

• TDCOSMO 2025: Cosmological constraints from strong lensing time delays
• The COSMOS-Web Lens Survey (COWLS) I: Discovery of >100 high redshift strong lenses in contiguous JWST imaging
• Project Dinos II: Redshift evolution of dark and luminous matter density profiles in strong-lensing elliptical galaxies across $0.1<z<0.9$
• A model for galaxy-galaxy strong lensing statistics in surveys
• The SLACS strong lens sample, debiased
• AGEL: Is the Conflict Real? Investigating Galaxy Evolution Models using Strong Lensing at 0.3 < z < 0.9
• Exploiting the diversity of modeling methods to probe systematic biases in strong lensing analyses
• The Carousel Lens: A Well-Modeled Strong Lens with Multiple Lensed Sources
• El Gordo needs El Anzuelo: Probing the structure of cluster members with multi-band extended arcs in JWST data
• Velocity dispersion function evolution from strong lensing statistics
• Lens Modeling of STRIDES Strongly Lensed Quasars using Neural Posterior Estimation
• Constraining Cosmology with Double-source-plane Strong Gravitational Lenses from the AGEL Survey
• Elliptical multipoles for gravitational lenses
• The SLACS strong lens sample, debiased. II. Lensing-only constraints on the stellar IMF and dark matter contraction in early-type galaxies
• TDCOSMO: XX. WFI2033--4723, the First Quadruply-Imaged Quasar Modeled with JWST Imaging
• The COSMOS-Web Lens Survey (COWLS) III: forecasts versus data
• Line-of-sight effects on double source plane lenses
• Galaxy-scale lens search in the PEARLS NEP TDF and CEERS JWST fields
• Investigating the Redshift Evolution of Lensing Galaxy Density Slopes via Model-Independent Distance Ratios
• Macromodel-free flux-ratio prediction in quadruply imaged quasars with local constraints from lensed arcs
• Investigating the relation between environment and internal structure of massive elliptical galaxies using strong lensing
• Optical+NIR analysis of a Newly Confirmed Einstein ring at z$\sim$1 from the Kilo-Degree Survey: Dark matter fraction, total and dark matter density slope and IMF
• Deep inference of simulated strong lenses in ground-based surveys
• Time delay measurements with Broken Power Law model
• Systematics in ETG Mass Profile Modelling: Strong Lensing & Stellar Dynamics
• JAXtronomy: A JAX port of lenstronomy
• Milky-Way-like stars in a galaxy core 8 billion years ago revealed by gravitational lensing
• TDCOSMO XXI. Accurate stellar velocity dispersions of the SL2S lens sample and the fundamental plane of the lensing mass