PROBING THE INNER KILOPARSEC OF MASSIVE GALAXIES WITH STRONG GRAVITATIONAL LENSING
- Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA (United States)
We examine the prospects of detecting demagnified images of gravitational lenses in observations of strongly lensed millimeter-wave molecular emission lines with ALMA. We model the lensing galaxies as a superposition of a dark matter component, a stellar component, and a central super-massive black hole (SMBH) and assess the detectability of the central images for a range of relevant parameters (e.g., stellar core, black hole mass, and source size). We find that over a large range of plausible parameters, future deep observations of lensed molecular lines with ALMA should enable the detection of the central images at ≳3σ significance. We use a Fisher analysis to examine the constraints that could be placed on these parameters in various scenarios and find that for large stellar cores, both the core size and the mass of the central SMBHs can be accurately measured. We also study the prospects for detecting binary SMBHs with such observations and find that only under rare conditions and with very long integrations (∼40 hr) the masses of both SMBHs may be measured using the distortions of central images.
- OSTI ID:
- 22364358
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal Letters, Vol. 799, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 2041-8205
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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