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November 24, 2014The Astrophysical Journal210 citationsOpen Access

Lens Models and Magnification Maps of the Six Hubble Frontier Fields Clusters

TJTraci L. JohnsonKSKeren SharonMBMatthew Bayliss

Key Points

  • To construct high-precision strong-lensing models, mass maps, and magnification distributions for the cores of the six Hubble Frontier Fields galaxy clusters.
  • Constructed parametric strong-lensing models constrained by multiple-image positions and redshifts of background galaxies across the six Hubble Frontier Fields cluster cores.
  • Integrated newly obtained spectroscopic redshifts for Abell 2744 and Abell S1063 with literature spectroscopic and photometric redshifts to evaluate systemic modeling uncertainties.
  • Photometric redshift estimates of lensed galaxies aligned closely with available spectroscopic redshifts.
  • Relaxing redshift priors led to underestimating the large-scale structure complexity needed to fit lensing signals, establishing the critical need for spectroscopic or tight photometric redshift constraints.

Abstract

We present strong-lensing models, as well as mass and magnification maps, for the cores of the six HST Frontier Fields galaxy clusters. Our parametric lens models are constrained by the locations and redshifts of multiple image systems of lensed background galaxies. We use a combination of photometric redshifts and spectroscopic redshifts of the lensed background sources obtained by us (for Abell 2744 and Abell S1063), collected from the literature, or kindly provided by the lensing community. Using our results, we (1) compare the derived mass distribution of each cluster to its light distribution, (2) quantify the cumulative magnification power of the HFF clusters, (3) describe how our models can be used to estimate the magnification and image multiplicity of lensed background sources at all redshifts and at any position within the cluster cores, and (4) discuss systematic effects and caveats resulting from our modeling methods. We specifically investigate the effect of the use of spectroscopic and photometric redshift constraints on the uncertainties of the resulting models. We find that the photometric redshift estimates of lensed galaxies are generally in excellent agreement with spectroscopic redshifts, where available. However, the flexibility associated with relaxed redshift priors may cause the complexity of large-scale structure that is needed to account for the lensing signal to be underestimated. Our findings thus underline the importance of spectroscopic arc redshifts, or tight photometric redshift constraints, for high precision lens models. All products from our best-fit lens models (magnification, convergence, shear, deflection field) and model simulations for estimating errors are made available via the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes.

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Cite This Study

Johnson et al. (2014) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/69dd549a7808b00a4799ccb4https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637x/797/1/48
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