On the density profile of dark matter substructure in gravitational lens galaxies

TL;DR

This study explores how different density profiles of dark matter substructures affect gravitational lensing observations, revealing degeneracies and constraints that improve understanding of satellite galaxy properties.

Contribution

It introduces three extensions of the NFW profile and analyzes their impact on gravitational lensing, highlighting the potential to better constrain dark matter substructure profiles.

Findings

Lensing can exclude certain parameter regions of substructure profiles.

Mass within Einstein radius is stable across profile assumptions.

Future high-resolution observations will tighten constraints.

Abstract

We consider three extensions of the Navarro, Frenk and White (NFW) profile and investigate the intrinsic degeneracies among the density profile parameters on the gravitational lensing effect of satellite galaxies on highly magnified Einstein rings. In particular, we find that the gravitational imaging technique can be used to exclude specific regions of the considered parameter space, and therefore, models that predict a large number of satellites in those regions. By comparing the lensing degeneracy with the intrinsic density profile degeneracies, we show that theoretical predictions based on fits that are dominated by the density profile at larger radii may significantly over- or underestimate the number of satellites that are detectable with gravitational lensing. Finally, using the previously reported detection of a satellite in the gravitational lens system JVAS B1938+666 as an example, we derive for this detected satellite values of r_max and v_max that are, for each considered profile, consistent within 1sigma with the parameters found for the luminous dwarf satellites of the Milky Way and with a mass density slope gamma < 1.6. We also find that the mass of the satellite within the Einstein radius as measured using gravitational lensing is stable against assumptions on the substructure profile. In the future thanks to the increased angular resolution of very long baseline interferometry at radio wavelengths and of the E-ELT in the optical we will be able to set tighter constraints on the number of allowed substructure profiles.