Abstract

Euclid: The Era of One-Hundred Thousand Strong Lenses
Extragalactic Strong Lensing : From Discovery to Exploitation
James Nightingale
University of Nottingham
Simon Dye (University of Nottingham)
The intricate analysis of a strong gravitational lens is a complex and computationally demanding problem, but when it is successful it can offer an unrivaled view of dark matter, cosmology and the most distant Universe. However, comprehensive lens modeling of this nature is still limited to samples of just 10-20 objects, due to how long such an involved analysis takes. With Euclid, the era of one-hundred thousand strong lenses is dawning and a revolution in our approach to modeling lenses is required now. This talk discusses AutoLens, the first automated framework for strong lens modeling. A brief overview of the method will be given, demonstrating (i) its use of a free-form adaptive pixel-grid to reconstruct the source galaxy, (ii) its simultaneous fitting of the lens galaxy's light and (iii) its incorporation of the lens's light into the mass model, which allows AutoLens to advocate decomposed mass modeling that separates the light from dark matter. The talk will include a step-by-step walk through of AutoLens's analysis of ER 0047-2808, demonstrating the automated computation of a comprehensive lens model from data initially drawn from the HST archive. The talk concludes by contemplating the revolutionary science possible with Euclid and one-hundred thousand strong lenses to study both astrophysics and cosmology.

Schedule

13:30 - 15:00
13:30
Friday
EX - LT2 (200)

RASLogo