The Roman View of Strong Gravitational Lenses
Galaxy–galaxy strong gravitational lenses can constrain dark matter models and the Lambda cold dark matter cosmological paradigm at subgalactic scales. Currently, there is a dearth of images of these rare systems with high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and angular resolution. The Nancy Grace Roman Spa...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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IOP Publishing
2025-01-01
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| Series: | The Astrophysical Journal |
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/adc24f |
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| author | Bryce Wedig Tansu Daylan Simon Birrer Francis-Yan Cyr-Racine Cora Dvorkin Douglas P. Finkbeiner Alan Huang Xiaosheng Huang Rahul Karthik Narayan Khadka Priyamvada Natarajan Anna M. Nierenberg Annika H. G. Peter Justin D. R. Pierel Xianzhe TZ Tang Risa H. Wechsler |
| author_facet | Bryce Wedig Tansu Daylan Simon Birrer Francis-Yan Cyr-Racine Cora Dvorkin Douglas P. Finkbeiner Alan Huang Xiaosheng Huang Rahul Karthik Narayan Khadka Priyamvada Natarajan Anna M. Nierenberg Annika H. G. Peter Justin D. R. Pierel Xianzhe TZ Tang Risa H. Wechsler |
| author_sort | Bryce Wedig |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Galaxy–galaxy strong gravitational lenses can constrain dark matter models and the Lambda cold dark matter cosmological paradigm at subgalactic scales. Currently, there is a dearth of images of these rare systems with high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and angular resolution. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (hereafter Roman), scheduled for launch in late 2026, will play a transformative role in strong-lensing science with its planned wide-field surveys. With its remarkable 0.281 square degree field of view and diffraction-limited angular resolution of ~0 $\mathop{.}\limits^{\unicode{x02033}}$ 1, Roman is uniquely suited to characterizing dark matter substructure from a robust population of strong lenses. We present a yield simulation of detectable strong lenses in Roman’s planned High Latitude Wide Area Survey (HLWAS). We simulate a population of galaxy–galaxy strong lenses across cosmic time with cold dark matter subhalo populations, select those detectable in the HLWAS, and generate simulated images accounting for realistic Wide Field Instrument detector effects. For a fiducial case of single 146 s exposures, we predict around 160,000 detectable strong lenses in the HLWAS, of which about 500 will have sufficient SNR to be amenable to detailed substructure characterization. We investigate the effect of variation of the point-spread function across Roman’s field of view on detecting individual subhalos and the suppression of the subhalo mass function at low masses. Our simulation products are available to support strong-lens science with Roman, such as training neural networks and validating dark matter substructure analysis pipelines. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-0ff6821823954552a6845c61a4e1eebc |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 1538-4357 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-01-01 |
| publisher | IOP Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | The Astrophysical Journal |
| spelling | doaj-art-0ff6821823954552a6845c61a4e1eebc2025-08-20T02:03:25ZengIOP PublishingThe Astrophysical Journal1538-43572025-01-0198614210.3847/1538-4357/adc24fThe Roman View of Strong Gravitational LensesBryce Wedig0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0748-7312Tansu Daylan1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6939-9211Simon Birrer2https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3195-5507Francis-Yan Cyr-Racine3https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7939-2988Cora Dvorkin4https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1476-1241Douglas P. Finkbeiner5https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2808-275XAlan Huang6https://orcid.org/0009-0001-8629-8826Xiaosheng Huang7https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8156-0330Rahul Karthik8https://orcid.org/0009-0007-6289-4360Narayan Khadka9https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5512-2716Priyamvada Natarajan10https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5554-8896Anna M. Nierenberg11https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6809-2536Annika H. G. Peter12https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8040-6785Justin D. R. Pierel13https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2361-7201Xianzhe TZ Tang14https://orcid.org/0009-0007-3185-7030Risa H. Wechsler15https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2229-011XDepartment of Physics, Washington University , St. Louis, MO 63130, USA ; tansu@wustl.eduDepartment of Physics, Washington University , St. Louis, MO 63130, USA ; tansu@wustl.edu; McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, Washington University , St. Louis, MO 63130, USADepartment of Physics and Astronomy, Stony Brook University , Stony Brook, NY 11794, USADepartment of Physics and Astronomy, University of New Mexico , Albuquerque, NM 87106, USADepartment of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USADepartment of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA; Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics , 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USADepartment of Physics and Astronomy, Stony Brook University , Stony Brook, NY 11794, USADepartment of Physics and Astronomy, University of San Francisco , San Francisco, CA 94117, USADepartment of Physics and Astronomy, Stony Brook University , Stony Brook, NY 11794, USADepartment of Physics and Astronomy, Stony Brook University , Stony Brook, NY 11794, USADepartment of Astronomy, Yale University , 219 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511, USA; Department of Physics, Yale University , 217 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511, USAUniversity of California, Merced , 5200 N Lake Road, Merced, CA 95341, USADepartment of Physics, The Ohio State University , 191 W. Woodruff Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, USA; Department of Astronomy, The Ohio State University , 140 W. 18th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, USA; Center for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics, The Ohio State University , 191 W. Woodruff Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, USASpace Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USADepartment of Physics and Astronomy, Stony Brook University , Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA; Department of Astronomy, Boston University , 685 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215, USAKavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology and Department of Physics, Stanford University , Stanford, CA 94305, USA; Department of Particle Physics & Astrophysics, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory , Menlo Park, CA 94025, USAGalaxy–galaxy strong gravitational lenses can constrain dark matter models and the Lambda cold dark matter cosmological paradigm at subgalactic scales. Currently, there is a dearth of images of these rare systems with high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and angular resolution. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (hereafter Roman), scheduled for launch in late 2026, will play a transformative role in strong-lensing science with its planned wide-field surveys. With its remarkable 0.281 square degree field of view and diffraction-limited angular resolution of ~0 $\mathop{.}\limits^{\unicode{x02033}}$ 1, Roman is uniquely suited to characterizing dark matter substructure from a robust population of strong lenses. We present a yield simulation of detectable strong lenses in Roman’s planned High Latitude Wide Area Survey (HLWAS). We simulate a population of galaxy–galaxy strong lenses across cosmic time with cold dark matter subhalo populations, select those detectable in the HLWAS, and generate simulated images accounting for realistic Wide Field Instrument detector effects. For a fiducial case of single 146 s exposures, we predict around 160,000 detectable strong lenses in the HLWAS, of which about 500 will have sufficient SNR to be amenable to detailed substructure characterization. We investigate the effect of variation of the point-spread function across Roman’s field of view on detecting individual subhalos and the suppression of the subhalo mass function at low masses. Our simulation products are available to support strong-lens science with Roman, such as training neural networks and validating dark matter substructure analysis pipelines.https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/adc24fStrong gravitational lensingDark matterDark matter distribution |
| spellingShingle | Bryce Wedig Tansu Daylan Simon Birrer Francis-Yan Cyr-Racine Cora Dvorkin Douglas P. Finkbeiner Alan Huang Xiaosheng Huang Rahul Karthik Narayan Khadka Priyamvada Natarajan Anna M. Nierenberg Annika H. G. Peter Justin D. R. Pierel Xianzhe TZ Tang Risa H. Wechsler The Roman View of Strong Gravitational Lenses The Astrophysical Journal Strong gravitational lensing Dark matter Dark matter distribution |
| title | The Roman View of Strong Gravitational Lenses |
| title_full | The Roman View of Strong Gravitational Lenses |
| title_fullStr | The Roman View of Strong Gravitational Lenses |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Roman View of Strong Gravitational Lenses |
| title_short | The Roman View of Strong Gravitational Lenses |
| title_sort | roman view of strong gravitational lenses |
| topic | Strong gravitational lensing Dark matter Dark matter distribution |
| url | https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/adc24f |
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