GALAXY-SCALE STRONG-LENSING TESTS OF GRAVITY AND GEOMETRIC COSMOLOGY: CONSTRAINTS AND SYSTEMATIC LIMITATIONS
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Schwab_etal_2010.pdf
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Author(s)
Bolton, Adam S.
Schwab, J.
Rappaport, Saul A
Date Issued
January 2010
Journal
Astrophysical Journal
Publisher
American Astronomical Society
Citation
Rappaport, Saul A., Adam S. Bolton, and Josiah Schwab. “GALAXY-SCALE STRONG-LENSING TESTS OF GRAVITY AND GEOMETRIC COSMOLOGY: CONSTRAINTS AND SYSTEMATIC LIMITATIONS*.” The Astrophysical Journal 708.1: 750-757. ©
2010 The American Astronomical Society
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Galaxy-scale strong gravitational lenses with measured stellar velocity dispersions allow a test of the weak-field metric on kiloparsec scales and a geometric measurement of the cosmological distance-redshift relation, provided that the mass-dynamical structure of the lensing galaxies can be independently constrained to a sufficient degree. We combine data on 53 galaxy-scale strong lenses from the Sloan Lens ACS Survey with a well-motivated fiducial set of lens-galaxy parameters to find (1) a constraint on the post-Newtonian parameter γ = 1.01 ± 0.05, and (2) a determination of ΩΛ = 0.75 ± 0.17 under the assumption of a flat universe. These constraints assume that the underlying observations and priors are free of systematic error. We evaluate the sensitivity of these results to systematic uncertainties in (1) total mass-profile shape, (2) velocity anisotropy, (3) light-profile shape, and (4) stellar velocity dispersion. Based on these sensitivities, we conclude that while such strong-lens samples can, in principle, provide an important tool for testing general relativity and cosmology, they are unlikely to yield precision measurements of γ and Ω[subscript Λ] unless the properties of the lensing galaxies are independently constrained with substantially greater accuracy than at present.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research
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DOI of Published Version
http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/708/1/750
