2016/10/19 by F. Bellagamba, Fabio Bellagamba, N Tessore +3 · 18 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Angular diameter #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysics #COSMIC cancer database #Cosmology #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Dark matter #Degeneracy (biology) #Einstein radius #Einstein ring #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Gravitational lens #Gravitational microlensing #Lens (geology) #Optics #Physics #RADIUS #Redshift #Stars #Strong gravitational lensing #astro-ph.CO #astro-ph.GA
paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/mnras/stw2726
published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 464(4), 4823-4834 (Oxford University Press) · 13 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS
arxiv created 2016/10/19 · openalex publication_date 2016/10/21 · arxiv updated 2016/12/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The gravitational lens SDSS J1148+1930, also known as the Cosmic Horseshoe, is one of the biggest and most detailed Einstein rings ever observed. We use the forward reconstruction method implemented in the lens-fitting code lensed to investigate in great detail the properties of the lens and background source. We model the lens with different mass distributions, focusing in particular on the determination of the slope of the dark-matter component. The inherent degeneracy between the lens slope and the source size can be broken when we can isolate separate components of each lensed image, as in this case. For an elliptical power-law model, κ(r) ∼ r−t, the results favour a flatter-than-isothermal slope with a maximum-likelihood value of t = 0.08. Instead, when we consider the contribution of the baryonic matter separately, the maximum-likelihood value of the slope of the dark-matter component is t = 0.31 or t = 0.44, depending on the assumed initial mass function. We discuss the origin of this result by analysing in detail how the images and the sources change when the slope t changes. We also demonstrate that these slope values at the Einstein radius are not inconsistent with the recent forecast from the theory of structure formation in the ΛCDM model.