DOE PAGES title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Improved time-delay lens modelling and H 0 inference with transient sources

Abstract

ABSTRACT Strongly lensed explosive transients such as supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, fast radio bursts, and gravitational waves are very promising tools to determine the Hubble constant (H0) in the near future in addition to strongly lensed quasars. In this work, we show that the transient nature of the point source provides an advantage over quasars: The lensed host galaxy can be observed before or after the transient’s appearance. Therefore, the lens model can be derived from images free of contamination from bright point sources. We quantify this advantage by comparing the precision of a lens model obtained from the same lenses with and without point sources. Based on Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) observations with the same sets of lensing parameters, we simulate realistic mock data sets of 48 quasar lensing systems (i.e. adding AGN in the galaxy centre) and 48 galaxy–galaxy lensing systems (assuming the transient source is not visible but the time delay and image positions have been or will be measured). We then model the images and compare the inferences of the lens model parameters and H0. We find that the precision of the lens models (in terms of the deflector mass slope) ismore » better by a factor of 4.1 for the sample without lensed point sources, resulting in an increase of H0 precision by a factor of 2.9. The opportunity to observe the lens systems without the transient point sources provides an additional advantage for time-delay cosmography over lensed quasars. It facilitates the determination of higher signal-to-noise stellar kinematics of the main deflector, and thus its mass density profile, which, in turn plays a key role in breaking the mass-sheet degeneracy and constraining H0.« less

Authors:
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2];  [3];  [4]; ORCiD logo [5];  [6]
  1. Kavli IPMU (WPI), UTIAS, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8583, Japan, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1547, USA
  2. School of Science, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China
  3. Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology and Department of Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
  4. Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 606374, USA
  5. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1547, USA
  6. School of Physics and Technology, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China
Publication Date:
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE
OSTI Identifier:
1784394
Resource Type:
Published Article
Journal Name:
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Name: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Journal Volume: 504 Journal Issue: 4; Journal ID: ISSN 0035-8711
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Country of Publication:
United Kingdom
Language:
English

Citation Formats

Ding, Xuheng, Liao, Kai, Birrer, Simon, Shajib, Anowar J., Treu, Tommaso, and Yang, Lilan. Improved time-delay lens modelling and H 0 inference with transient sources. United Kingdom: N. p., 2021. Web. doi:10.1093/mnras/stab1240.
Ding, Xuheng, Liao, Kai, Birrer, Simon, Shajib, Anowar J., Treu, Tommaso, & Yang, Lilan. Improved time-delay lens modelling and H 0 inference with transient sources. United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stab1240
Ding, Xuheng, Liao, Kai, Birrer, Simon, Shajib, Anowar J., Treu, Tommaso, and Yang, Lilan. Tue . "Improved time-delay lens modelling and H 0 inference with transient sources". United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stab1240.
@article{osti_1784394,
title = {Improved time-delay lens modelling and H 0 inference with transient sources},
author = {Ding, Xuheng and Liao, Kai and Birrer, Simon and Shajib, Anowar J. and Treu, Tommaso and Yang, Lilan},
abstractNote = {ABSTRACT Strongly lensed explosive transients such as supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, fast radio bursts, and gravitational waves are very promising tools to determine the Hubble constant (H0) in the near future in addition to strongly lensed quasars. In this work, we show that the transient nature of the point source provides an advantage over quasars: The lensed host galaxy can be observed before or after the transient’s appearance. Therefore, the lens model can be derived from images free of contamination from bright point sources. We quantify this advantage by comparing the precision of a lens model obtained from the same lenses with and without point sources. Based on Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) observations with the same sets of lensing parameters, we simulate realistic mock data sets of 48 quasar lensing systems (i.e. adding AGN in the galaxy centre) and 48 galaxy–galaxy lensing systems (assuming the transient source is not visible but the time delay and image positions have been or will be measured). We then model the images and compare the inferences of the lens model parameters and H0. We find that the precision of the lens models (in terms of the deflector mass slope) is better by a factor of 4.1 for the sample without lensed point sources, resulting in an increase of H0 precision by a factor of 2.9. The opportunity to observe the lens systems without the transient point sources provides an additional advantage for time-delay cosmography over lensed quasars. It facilitates the determination of higher signal-to-noise stellar kinematics of the main deflector, and thus its mass density profile, which, in turn plays a key role in breaking the mass-sheet degeneracy and constraining H0.},
doi = {10.1093/mnras/stab1240},
journal = {Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society},
number = 4,
volume = 504,
place = {United Kingdom},
year = {Tue May 04 00:00:00 EDT 2021},
month = {Tue May 04 00:00:00 EDT 2021}
}

Journal Article:
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stab1240

Save / Share:

Works referenced in this record:

Strong gravitational lensing of gravitational waves from double compact binaries—perspectives for the Einstein Telescope
journal, October 2014

  • Biesiada, Marek; Ding, Xuheng; Piórkowska, Aleksandra
  • Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 2014, Issue 10
  • DOI: 10.1088/1475-7516/2014/10/080

Gravitational lens Modeling with Basis sets
journal, November 2015


Strong Lensing by Galaxies
journal, August 2010


Multiply imaged time-varying sources behind galaxy clusters: Comparing fast radio bursts to QSOs, SNe, and GRBs
journal, January 2019


High-redshift supernova rates measured with the gravitational telescope A 1689
journal, October 2016


Precision cosmology from future lensed gravitational wave and electromagnetic signals
journal, October 2017


A Universal Density Profile from Hierarchical Clustering
journal, December 1997

  • Navarro, Julio F.; Frenk, Carlos S.; White, Simon D. M.
  • The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 490, Issue 2
  • DOI: 10.1086/304888

Calibration of the Tip of the Red Giant Branch
journal, March 2020

  • Freedman, Wendy L.; Madore, Barry F.; Hoyt, Taylor
  • The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 891, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ab7339

Two Accurate Time-Delay Distances from Strong Lensing: Implications for Cosmology
journal, March 2013


Gravitationally lensed quasars and supernovae in future wide-field optical imaging surveys: Lensed quasars and supernovae
journal, April 2010


H0LiCOW VIII. A weak-lensing measurement of the external convergence in the field of the lensed quasar HE 0435−1223
journal, April 2018

  • Tihhonova, O.; Courbin, F.; Harvey, D.
  • Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 477, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1093/mnras/sty1040

TDCOSMO: III. Dark matter substructure meets dark energy. The effects of (sub)halos on strong-lensing measurements of H 0
journal, October 2020


lenstronomy: Multi-purpose gravitational lens modelling software package
journal, December 2018


TDCOSMO: IV. Hierarchical time-delay cosmography – joint inference of the Hubble constant and galaxy density profiles
journal, November 2020


Analytic Time Delays and H 0 Estimates for Gravitational Lenses
journal, November 2000

  • Witt, Hans J.; Mao, Shude; Keeton, Charles R.
  • The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 544, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1086/317201

Prediction of Supernova Rates in Known Galaxy–Galaxy Strong-lens Systems
journal, September 2018


Strongly lensed gravitational waves from intrinsically faint double compact binaries—prediction for the Einstein Telescope
journal, December 2015

  • Ding, Xuheng; Biesiada, Marek; Zhu, Zong-Hong
  • Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 2015, Issue 12
  • DOI: 10.1088/1475-7516/2015/12/006

H0LiCOW – III. Quantifying the effect of mass along the line of sight to the gravitational lens HE 0435−1223 through weighted galaxy counts★
journal, February 2017

  • Rusu, Cristian E.; Fassnacht, Christopher D.; Sluse, Dominique
  • Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 467, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stx285

H0LiCOW – I. H0 Lenses in COSMOGRAIL's Wellspring: program overview
journal, February 2017

  • Suyu, S. H.; Bonvin, V.; Courbin, F.
  • Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 468, Issue 3
  • DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stx483

The mass-sheet degeneracy and time-delay cosmography: analysis of the strong lens RXJ1131-1231
journal, August 2016

  • Birrer, Simon; Amara, Adam; Refregier, Alexandre
  • Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 2016, Issue 08
  • DOI: 10.1088/1475-7516/2016/08/020

Massive Dark Matter Halos and Evolution of Early‐Type Galaxies to z ≈ 1
journal, August 2004

  • Treu, Tommaso; Koopmans, Leon V. E.
  • The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 611, Issue 2
  • DOI: 10.1086/422245

The Wave Nature of Continuous Gravitational Waves from Microlensing
journal, April 2019


emcee : The MCMC Hammer
journal, March 2013

  • Foreman-Mackey, Daniel; Hogg, David W.; Lang, Dustin
  • Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Vol. 125, Issue 925
  • DOI: 10.1086/670067

SHARP – III. First use of adaptive-optics imaging to constrain cosmology with gravitational lens time delays
journal, August 2016

  • Chen, Geoff C. -F.; Suyu, Sherry H.; Wong, Kenneth C.
  • Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 462, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stw991

20 years of Hubble Space Telescope optical modeling using Tiny Tim
conference, September 2011

  • Krist, John E.; Hook, Richard N.; Stoehr, Felix
  • SPIE Optical Engineering + Applications, SPIE Proceedings
  • DOI: 10.1117/12.892762

On the Possibility of Determining Hubble's Parameter and the Masses of Galaxies from the Gravitational Lens Effect
journal, September 1964


Gravitational lensing of gravitational waves: a statistical perspective
journal, February 2018

  • Li, Shun-Sheng; Mao, Shude; Zhao, Yuetong
  • Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 476, Issue 2
  • DOI: 10.1093/mnras/sty411

Lensing Degeneracies Revisited
journal, October 2000

  • Saha, Prasenjit
  • The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 120, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1086/301581

A SHARP view of H0LiCOW: H0 from three time-delay gravitational lens systems with adaptive optics imaging
journal, September 2019

  • Chen, Geoff C-F; Fassnacht, Christopher D.; Suyu, Sherry H.
  • Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 490, Issue 2
  • DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stz2547

Seeing Double: Strong Gravitational Lensing of High-Redshift Supernovae
journal, August 2001

  • Holz, Daniel E.
  • The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 556, Issue 2
  • DOI: 10.1086/322947

Gravitational Lensing Model Degeneracies: Is Steepness All‐Important?
journal, December 2006

  • Saha, Prasenjit; Williams, Liliya L. R.
  • The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 653, Issue 2
  • DOI: 10.1086/508798

Lensing degeneracies and mass substructure: Lensing degeneracies and mass substructure
journal, August 2012


The Carnegie-Chicago Hubble Program. VIII. An Independent Determination of the Hubble Constant Based on the Tip of the Red Giant Branch
journal, August 2019

  • Freedman, Wendy L.; Madore, Barry F.; Hatt, Dylan
  • The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 882, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ab2f73

Degeneracies and scaling relations in general power-law models for gravitational lenses
journal, June 2002


Cosmological Applications of Gravitational Lensing
journal, January 1992


Time delay cosmography
journal, July 2016


Precise Time Delays from Strongly Gravitationally Lensed Type Ia Supernovae with Chromatically Microlensed Images
journal, March 2018

  • Goldstein, Daniel A.; Nugent, Peter E.; Kasen, Daniel N.
  • The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 855, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/aaa975

Fourth Test of General Relativity
journal, December 1964


On model-dependent bounds on H(0) from gravitational images Application of Q0957 + 561A,B
journal, February 1985

  • Falco, E. E.; Gorenstein, M. V.; Shapiro, I. I.
  • The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 289
  • DOI: 10.1086/184422

H0LiCOW VII: cosmic evolution of the correlation between black hole mass and host galaxy luminosity
journal, August 2017

  • Ding, Xuheng; Treu, Tommaso; Suyu, Sherry H.
  • Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 472, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stx1972

Gravitational Lenses
book, January 1992


The Structure and Dynamics of Massive Early-Type Galaxies: on Homology, Isothermality, and Isotropy Inside one Effective Radius
journal, September 2009


Source-position transformation: an approximate invariance in strong gravitational lensing
journal, April 2014


Microlensing makes lensed quasar time delays significantly time variable
journal, September 2017

  • Tie, S. S.; Kochanek, C. S.
  • Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 473, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stx2348

The Hubble Constant from the Gravitational Lens B1608+6561
journal, December 2003

  • Koopmans, L. V. E.; Treu, T.; Fassnacht, C. D.
  • The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 599, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1086/379226

Prospects for Strongly Lensed Supernovae Behind Hubble Frontier Fields Galaxy Clusters with the James Webb Space Telescope
journal, December 2018


The Internal Structure and Formation of Early‐Type Galaxies: The Gravitational Lens System MG 2016+112 at z = 1.004
journal, August 2002

  • Treu, Tommaso; Koopmans, Leon V. E.
  • The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 575, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1086/341216

Detecting strongly lensed supernovae at z ∼ 5–7 with LSST
journal, November 2019

  • Rydberg, Claes-Erik; Whalen, Daniel J.; Maturi, Matteo
  • Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 491, Issue 2
  • DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stz3203

Hubble constant hunter’s guide
journal, February 2020


Search for Gravitational Lensing Signatures in LIGO-Virgo Binary Black Hole Events
journal, March 2019


Multiple images of a highly magnified supernova formed by an early-type cluster galaxy lens
journal, March 2015


The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: DR4 maps and cosmological parameters
journal, December 2020

  • Aiola, Simone; Calabrese, Erminia; Maurin, Loïc
  • Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 2020, Issue 12
  • DOI: 10.1088/1475-7516/2020/12/047

On the Accuracy of Time-delay Cosmography in the Frontier Fields Cluster MACS J1149.5+2223 with Supernova Refsdal
journal, July 2020


Observational selection biases in time-delay strong lensing and their impact on cosmography
journal, July 2016

  • Collett, Thomas E.; Cunnington, Steven D.
  • Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 462, Issue 3
  • DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stw1856

Particle swarm optimization
conference, January 1995

  • Kennedy, J.; Eberhart, R.
  • Proceedings of ICNN'95 - International Conference on Neural Networks
  • DOI: 10.1109/ICNN.1995.488968

Projected Cosmological Constraints from Strongly Lensed Supernovae with the Roman Space Telescope
journal, February 2021

  • Pierel, J. D. R.; Rodney, S.; Vernardos, G.
  • The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 908, Issue 2
  • DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/abd8d3

HOW TO FIND GRAVITATIONALLY LENSED TYPE Ia SUPERNOVAE
journal, December 2016


STRIDES: a 3.9 per cent measurement of the Hubble constant from the strong lens system DES J0408−5354
journal, March 2020

  • Shajib, A. J.; Birrer, S.; Treu, T.
  • Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 494, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1093/mnras/staa828

H0LiCOW – IV. Lens mass model of HE 0435−1223 and blind measurement of its time-delay distance for cosmology
journal, November 2016

  • Wong, Kenneth C.; Suyu, Sherry H.; Auger, Matthew W.
  • Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 465, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stw3077

TDCOSMO: V. Strategies for precise and accurate measurements of the Hubble constant with strong lensing
journal, May 2021


Planck 2018 results: VI. Cosmological parameters
journal, September 2020


H0LiCOW – IX. Cosmographic analysis of the doubly imaged quasar SDSS 1206+4332 and a new measurement of the Hubble constant
journal, January 2019

  • Birrer, S.; Treu, T.; Rusu, C. E.
  • Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 484, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stz200

HOLISMOKES: III. Achromatic phase of strongly lensed Type Ia supernovae
journal, February 2021


H0LiCOW. VI. Testing the fidelity of lensed quasar host galaxy reconstruction
journal, November 2016

  • Ding, Xuheng; Liao, Kai; Treu, Tommaso
  • Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 465, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stw3078

Chromatic Microlensing Time Delays
journal, August 2020


Cosmic Distances Calibrated to 1% Precision with Gaia EDR3 Parallaxes and Hubble Space Telescope Photometry of 75 Milky Way Cepheids Confirm Tension with ΛCDM
journal, February 2021

  • Riess, Adam G.; Casertano, Stefano; Yuan, Wenlong
  • The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 908, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/abdbaf

Searching for supernovae in the multiply-imaged galaxies behind the gravitational telescope A370
journal, June 2018


Time delay lens modelling challenge
journal, February 2021

  • Ding, X.; Treu, T.; Birrer, S.
  • Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 503, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stab484

TDCOSMO: I. An exploration of systematic uncertainties in the inference of H 0 from time-delay cosmography
journal, July 2020


The internal structure of the lens PG1115+080: breaking degeneracies in the value of the Hubble constant
journal, September 2002


Measuring the Value of the Hubble Constant “à la Refsdal”
journal, June 2018


H0LiCOW – XIII. A 2.4 per cent measurement of H0 from lensed quasars: 5.3σ tension between early- and late-Universe probes
journal, September 2019

  • Wong, Kenneth C.; Suyu, Sherry H.; Chen, Geoff C-F
  • Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 498, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stz3094

What Do Gravitational Lens Time Delays Measure?
journal, October 2002

  • Kochanek, C. S.
  • The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 578, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1086/342476

Magnification, dust and time-delay constraints from the first resolved strongly lensed Type Ia supernova iPTF16geu
journal, October 2019

  • Dhawan, S.; Johansson, J.; Goobar, A.
  • Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
  • DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stz2965

Strongly lensed repeating fast radio bursts as precision probes of the universe
journal, September 2018


Strong gravitational lensing of explosive transients
journal, November 2019


Lens modelling of the strongly lensed Type Ia supernova iPTF16geu
journal, June 2020

  • Mörtsell, E.; Johansson, J.; Dhawan, S.
  • Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 496, Issue 3
  • DOI: 10.1093/mnras/staa1600

How Does the Earth’s Rotation Affect Predictions of Gravitational Wave Strong Lensing Rates?
journal, April 2019


Strong gravitational lensing of gravitational waves in Einstein Telescope
journal, October 2013

  • Piórkowska, Aleksandra; Biesiada, Marek; Zhu, Zong-Hong
  • Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 2013, Issue 10
  • DOI: 10.1088/1475-7516/2013/10/022

Gravitational lensing
journal, November 2010


Ambiguities in gravitational lens models: impact on time delays of the source position transformation
journal, September 2018