Testing the uniqueness of gravitational lens mass models

TL;DR

This paper investigates whether complex mass asymmetries in galaxy lenses can be mistaken for simpler elliptical+shear models, revealing that many such asymmetries can go undetected in gravitational lensing observations.

Contribution

It introduces a study on the detectability of azimuthal mass asymmetries in galaxy lenses and shows that many asymmetries can be concealed by simpler models.

Findings

Elliptical+shear models can fit simple galaxy lenses well.

Mass asymmetries often evade detection depending on source properties.

Approximately half of the studied cases hide mass asymmetries from simple models.

Abstract

The positions of images produced by the gravitational lensing of background sources provide unique insight in to galaxy-lens mass distribution. However, even quad images of extended sources are not able to fully characterize the central regions of the host galaxy. Most previous work has focused either on the radial density profile of the lenses or localized substructure clumps. Here, we concentrate on the azimuthal mass asymmetries near the image circle. The motivation for considering such mass inhomogeneities is that the transition between the central stellar dominated region and the outer dark matter dominated region, though well represented by a power law density profile, is unlikely to be featureless, and encodes information about the dynamical state and assembly history of galaxies. It also happens to roughly coincide with the Einstein radius. We ask if galaxies that have mass asymmetries beyond ellipticity can be modeled with simpler lenses, i.e., can complex mass distributions masquerade as simple elliptical+shear lenses? Our preliminary study indicates that for galaxies with elliptical stellar and dark matter distributions, but with no mass asymmetry, and an extended source filling the diamond caustic, an elliptical+shear lens model can reproduce the images well, thereby hiding the potential complexity of the actual mass distribution. For galaxies with non-zero mass asymmetry, the answer depends on the size and brightness distribution of the source, and its location within the diamond caustic. In roughly half of the cases we considered the mass asymmetries can easily evade detection.