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SHARP – III. First use of adaptive-optics imaging to constrain cosmology with gravitational lens time delays
- Source :
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 462, 3457-3475. Oxford University Press, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2016, 462, pp.3457-3475. ⟨10.1093/mnras/stw991⟩
- Publication Year :
- 2016
- Publisher :
- Oxford University Press (OUP), 2016.
-
Abstract
- Accurate and precise measurements of the Hubble constant are critical for testing our current standard cosmological model and revealing possibly new physics. With Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaging, each strong gravitational lens system with measured time delays can allow one to determine the Hubble constant with an uncertainty of $\sim 7\%$. Since HST will not last forever, we explore adaptive-optics (AO) imaging as an alternative that can provide higher angular resolution than HST imaging but has a less stable point spread function (PSF) due to atmospheric distortion. To make AO imaging useful for time-delay-lens cosmography, we develop a method to extract the unknown PSF directly from the imaging of strongly lensed quasars. In a blind test with two mock data sets created with different PSFs, we are able to recover the important cosmological parameters (time-delay distance, external shear, lens mass profile slope, and total Einstein radius). Our analysis of the Keck AO image of the strong lens system RXJ1131-1231 shows that the important parameters for cosmography agree with those based on HST imaging and modeling within 1-$\sigma$ uncertainties. Most importantly, the constraint on the model time-delay distance by using AO imaging with $0.045"$resolution is tighter by $\sim 50\%$ than the constraint of time-delay distance by using HST imaging with $0.09"$when a power-law mass distribution for the lens system is adopted. Our PSF reconstruction technique is generic and applicable to data sets that have multiple nearby point sources, enabling scientific studies that require high-precision models of the PSF.<br />Comment: 20 pages, 15 figures
- Subjects :
- Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)
FOS: Physical sciences
Lambda-CDM model
Astrophysics::Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
Astrophysics
instrumentation: adaptive optics
distance scale
01 natural sciences
Cosmology
Einstein radius
symbols.namesake
0103 physical sciences
Adaptive optics
010303 astronomy & astrophysics
Astrophysics::Galaxy Astrophysics
Physics
[SDU.ASTR]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Astrophysics [astro-ph]
Mass distribution
010308 nuclear & particles physics
gravitational lensing: strong
Astronomy
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Quasar
Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
methods: data analysis
Gravitational lens
[SDU]Sciences of the Universe [physics]
Space and Planetary Science
Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)
symbols
Astrophysics::Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Hubble's law
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 13652966, 00358711, and 11311231
- Volume :
- 462
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....41998cdb1193b3f23ee9232191a85b7b