JWST lensed quasar dark matter survey I: Description and First Results
A. M. Nierenberg, R. E. Keeley, D. Sluse, D. Gilman, S. Birrer, T., Treu, K. N. Abazajian, T. Anguita, A. J. Benson, V. N. Bennert, S. G., Djorgovski, X. Du, C. D. Fassnacht, S. F. Hoenig, A. Kusenko, C. Lemon, M., Malkan, V. Motta, L. A. Moustakas, D. Stern, R. H. Wechsler

TL;DR
This paper introduces a JWST survey measuring flux ratios of lensed quasars' warm dust emission to probe small-scale dark matter structures, achieving high precision and enabling detection of dark halos below galaxy formation scales.
Contribution
It presents a novel survey method using JWST MIRI to measure quasar flux ratios with high precision, sensitive to dark matter halos below galaxy formation scales.
Findings
Achieved 3% precision in flux ratio measurements.
Simulations indicate detection of 10^7 M_sun dark halos is feasible.
First results demonstrate the method's potential for dark matter studies.
Abstract
The flux ratios of gravitationally lensed quasars provide a powerful probe of the nature of dark matter. Importantly, these ratios are sensitive to small-scale structure, irrespective of the presence of baryons. This sensitivity may allow us to study the halo mass function even below the scales where galaxies form observable stars. For accurate measurements, it is essential that the quasar's light is emitted from a physical region of the quasar with an angular scale of milli-arcseconds or larger; this minimizes microlensing effects by stars within the deflector. The warm dust region of quasars fits this criterion, as it has parsec-size physical scales and dominates the spectral energy distribution of quasars at wavelengths greater than 10m. The JWST Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) is adept at detecting redshifted light in this wavelength range, offering both the spatial resolution…
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Taxonomy
TopicsAstronomy and Astrophysical Research · Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena · Adaptive optics and wavefront sensing
