Project Dinos II: Redshift evolution of dark and luminous matter density profiles in strong-lensing elliptical galaxies across 0.1 < z < 0.9
astro-ph.GA, astro-ph.CO
Submitted: 2024-08-19
Updated: 2026-09-23
Comments: 28 pages, 20 figures
Journal ref: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 541 (2025) 1-27
Code: https://github.com/lenstronomy/lenstronomy
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
The gist: We present a new measurement of the dark and luminous matter distribution of massive elliptical galaxies, and their evolution with redshift, by combining strong lensing and dynamical observables.
Terminology
Abstract
We present a new measurement of the dark and luminous matter distribution of massive elliptical galaxies, and their evolution with redshift, by combining strong lensing and dynamical observables. Our sample of 56 lens galaxies covers a redshift range of 0.090 at most z l at most 0.884. By combining new Hubble Space Telescope imaging with previously observed velocity dispersion and line-of-sight measurements, we decompose the luminous matter profile from the dark matter profile and perform a Bayesian hierarchical analysis to constrain the population-level properties of both profiles. We find that the inner slope of the dark matter density profile ("cusp"; ρ DM proportional to r-γ in) is consistent (μ γ in=0.97+0.03-0.03 with at most0.07 intrinsic scatter) with a standard Navarro-Frenk-White (NFW; γ in=1) at z=0.35. Additionally, we find an appreciable evolution with redshift (d (γ in)/dz=-0.44+0.14-0.15) resulting in a shallower slope (of > 2 σ tension from NFW) at redshifts z 0.49. This is in excellent agreement with previous population-level observational studies, as well as with predictions from hydrodynamical simulations such as IllustrisTNG. We also find the stellar mass-to-light ratio at the population level is consistent with that of a Salpeter initial mass function, a small stellar mass-to-light gradient (κ*(r) proportional to r-η, with η at most 5 times 10-5), and isotropic stellar orbits. Our averaged total mass density profile is consistent with a power-law profile within 0.25 to 4 Einstein radii (γ = 2.24 plus or minus 0.14), with an internal mass-sheet transformation parameter λ = 0.96 plus or minus 0.03 consistent with no mass sheet. Our findings confirm the validity of the standard mass models used for time-delay cosmography.
Sources
- Time-Delay Cosmography: Measuring the Hubble Constant and other cosmological parameters with strong gravitational lensing
- Halo Contraction Effect in Hydrodynamic Simulations of Galaxy Formation
- TDCOSMO XIX. Measuring stellar velocity dispersion with sub-percent accuracy for cosmography
- TDCOSMO XXI. Accurate stellar velocity dispersions of the SL2S lens sample and the fundamental plane of the lensing mass
- Strong Lensing by Galaxies
- The SLACS strong lens sample, debiased
- Strong Lensing and $H_0$
- Strong Lensing considerations for the LSST observing strategy
- TDCOSMO XV: Population Analysis of Lines of Sight of 25 Strong Galaxy-Galaxy Lenses with Extreme Value Statistics
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