Fast and Reliable Time Delay Estimation of Strong Lens Systems Using the Smoothing and Cross-Correlation Methods

The observable time delays between multiple images of strong lensing systems with time variable sources can provide us with some valuable information for probing the expansion history of the universe. Estimating these time delays can be very challenging due to complexities in the observed data caused by seasonal gaps, various noises, and systematics such as unknown microlensing effects. In this paper, we introduce a novel approach for estimating the time delays for strong lensing systems, implementing various statistical methods of data analysis including the smoothing and cross-correlation methods. The method we introduce in this paper has recently been used in the TDC0 and TDC1 Strong Lens Time Delay Challenges and has shown its power in providing reliable and precise estimates of time delays dealing with data with different complexities.