# Cosmic Time Slip: Testing Gravity on Supergalactic Scales with Strong-Lensing Time Delays

## TL;DR

This paper proposes a new test for deviations from general relativity using strong gravitational lensing time delays, constraining gravitational screening effects on supergalactic scales with current lens data.

## Contribution

It introduces a phenomenological model of gravitational screening affecting lensing time delays and provides the first constraints on deviations from GR at 10-200 kpc scales using observed lens systems.

## Key findings

- Constraints on deviations from GR are below 0.2 for certain screening scales.
- Strong-lensing time delays can effectively probe gravity on kpc-Mpc scales.
- Future measurements could improve constraints and test gravity theories.

## Abstract

We devise a test of nonlinear departures from general relativity (GR) using time delays in strong gravitational lenses. We use a phenomenological model of gravitational screening as a step discontinuity in the measure of curvature per unit mass, at a radius $\Lambda$. The resulting slip between two scalar gravitational potentials leads to a shift in the apparent positions and time delays of lensed sources, relative to the GR predictions, of size $\gamma_{\rm PN}-1$. As a proof of principle, we use measurements of two lenses, RXJ1121-1231 and B1608+656, to constrain deviations from GR to be below $|\gamma_{\rm PN}-1| \leq 0.2 \times (\Lambda/100\, \rm kpc)$. These constraints are complementary to other current probes, and are the tightest in the range $\Lambda=10-200$ kpc, showing that future measurements of strong-lensing time delays have great promise to seek departures from general relativity on kpc-Mpc scales.