Galaxy mass profiles from strong lensing III: The two-dimensional broken power-law model

TL;DR

This paper introduces a flexible two-dimensional broken power-law model for galaxy mass profiles in strong lensing, deriving its lensing properties and demonstrating improved accuracy in measuring mass slopes compared to traditional models.

Contribution

It develops and analyzes a novel 2D broken power-law lens model, providing new tools for more precise mass profile measurements in strong gravitational lensing.

Findings

The 2DBPL model accurately recovers the inner mass slope.

Lensing measurements are sensitive to the inner mass distribution.

The model improves upon the traditional single power-law approach.

Abstract

When modelling strong gravitational lenses, i.e., where there are multiple images of the same source, the most widely used parameterisation for the mass profile in the lens galaxy is the singular power-law model $\rho(r)\propto r^{-\gamma}$. This model may be insufficiently flexible for very accurate work, for example measuring the Hubble constant based on time delays between multiple images. Here we derive the lensing properties - deflection angle, shear, and magnification - of a more adaptable model where the projected mass surface density is parameterised as a continuous two-dimensional broken power-law (2DBPL). This elliptical 2DBPL model is characterised by power-law slopes $t_1$, $t_2$ either side of the break radius $\theta_\mathrm{B}$. The key to the 2DBPL model is the derivation of the lensing properties of the truncated power law (TPL) model, where the surface density is a power law out to the truncation radius $\theta_\mathrm{T}$ and zero beyond. This TPL model is also useful by itself. We create mock observations of lensing by a TPL profile where the images form outside the truncation radius, so there is no mass in the annulus covered by the images. We then show that the slope of the profile interior to the images may be accurately recovered for lenses of moderate ellipticity. This demonstrates that the widely-held notion that lensing measures the slope of the mass profile in the annulus of the images, and is insensitive to the mass distribution at radii interior to the images, is incorrect.