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Cold dark matter (CDM) constitutes most of the matter in the Universe. The interplay between dark and luminous matter in dense cosmic environments, such as galaxy clusters, is studied theoretically using cosmological simulations. Observations of gravitational lensing are used to characterize the properties of substructures—the small-scale distribution of dark matter—in clusters. We derive a metric, the probability of strong lensing events produced by dark-matter substructure, and compute it for 11 galaxy clusters. The observed cluster substructures are more efficient lenses than predicted by CDM simulations, by more than an order of magnitude. We suggest that systematic issues with simulations or incorrect assumptions about the properties of dark matter could explain our results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Full ray-tracing maps of gravitational lensing, constructed from N-body simulations, represent a fundamental tool to interpret present and future weak-lensing data. However, the limitation of computational resources and storage capabilities severely restricts the number of realizations that can be performed in order to accurately sample both the cosmic shear models and covariance matrices. In this paper, we present a halo model formalism for weak gravitational lensing that alleviates these issues by producing weak-lensing mocks at a reduced computational cost. Our model takes as input the halo population within a desired light cone and the linear power spectrum of the underlined cosmological model. We examine the contribution given by the presence of substructures within haloes to the cosmic shear power spectrum and quantify it to the percent level. Our method allows us to reconstruct high-resolution convergence maps, for any desired source redshifts, of light cones that realistically trace the matter density distribution in the universe, account for masked area and sample selections.We compare our analysis on the same large-scale structures constructed using ray-tracing techniques and find very good agreements in both the linear and non-linear regimes up to fewpercent levels. The accuracy and speed of our method demonstrate the potential of our halo model for weak-lensing statistics and the possibility to generate a large sample of convergence maps for different cosmological models as needed for the analysis of large galaxy redshift surveys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The next generation of large sky photometric surveys will finally be able to use arc statistics as a cosmological probe. Here, we present the first of a series of papers on this topic. In particular, we study how arc counts are sensitive to the variation of two cosmological parameters: the (total) matter density parameter, Ωm, and the normalization of the primordial power spectrum, expressed in terms of σ8. Both these parameters influence the abundances of collapsed structures and their internal structure. We compute the expected number of gravitational arcs with various length-to-width ratios in mock light cones, by varying these cosmological parameters in the ranges 0.1 ≤ Ωm ≤ 0.5 and 0.6 ≤ σ8 ≤ 1. We find that the arc counts dependence on Ωm and σ8 is similar, but not identical, to that of the halo counts. We investigate how the precision of the constraints on the cosmological parameters based on arc counts depend on the survey area. We find that the constraining power of arc statistics degrades critically only for surveys covering an area smaller than 10 per cent of the whole sky. Finally, we consider the case in which the search for arcs is done only in frames where galaxy clusters have been previously identified. Adopting the selection function for galaxy clusters expected to be detected from photometric data in future wide surveys, we find that less than 10 per cent of the arcs will be missed, with only a small degradation of the corresponding cosmological constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We perform multiplane ray tracing using the GLAMER gravitational lensing code within highresolution light-cones extracted from the CoDECS simulations: a suite of cosmological runs featuring a coupling between dark energy and cold dark matter (CDM). We show that the presence of the coupling is evident not only in the redshift evolution of the normalization of the convergence power spectrum, but also in differences in non-linear structure formation with respect to ACDM. Using a tomographic approach under the assumption of a ACDM cosmology, we demonstrate that weak lensing measurements would result in a a 8 value that changes with the source redshift if the true underlying cosmology is a coupled dark energy (cDE) one. This provides a generic null test for these types of models. We also find that different models of cDE can show either an enhanced or a suppressed correlation between convergence maps with differing source redshifts as compared to ACDM. This would provide a direct way to discriminate between different possible realizations of the cDE scenario. Finally, we discuss the impact of the coupling on several lensing observables for different source redshifts and angular scales with realistic source redshift distributions for current ground-based and future space-based lensing surveys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While clusters of galaxies are considered one of the most important cosmological probes, the standard spherical modelling of the dark matter and the intracluster medium is only a rough approximation. Indeed, it is well established both theoretically and observationally that galaxy clusters are much better approximated as triaxial objects. However, investigating the asphericity of galaxy clusters is still in its infancy. We review here this topic which is currently gathering a growing interest from the cluster community. We begin by introducing the triaxial geometry. Then we discuss the topic of deprojection and demonstrate the need for combining different probes of the cluster's potential. We discuss the different works that have been addressing these issues. We present a general parametric framework intended to simultaneously fit complementary data sets (X-ray, Sunyaev Zel'dovich and lensing data). We discuss in details the case of Abell 1689 to show how different models/data sets lead to different haloe parameters. We present the results obtained from fitting a 3D NFW model to X-ray, SZ, and lensing data for 4 strong lensing clusters. We argue that a triaxial model generally allows to lower the inferred value of the concentration parameter compared to a spherical analysis. This may alleviate tensions regarding, e.g. the over-concentration problem. However, we stress that predictions from numerical simulations rely on a spherical analysis of triaxial halos. Given that triaxial analysis will have a growing importance in the observational side, we advocate the need for simulations to be analysed in the very same way, allowing reliable and meaningful comparisons. Besides, methods intended to derive the three dimensional shape of galaxy clusters should be extensively tested on simulated multi-wavelength observations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The core structure of galaxy clusters is fundamentally important. Even though self-gravitating systems have no stable equilibrium state due to their negative heat capacity, numerical simulations find density profiles which are universal in the sense that they are fairly flat within a scale radius and gradually steepen farther outward, asymptotically approaching a logarithmic slope of ≈−3 near the virial radius. We argue that the reason for the formation of this profile is not satisfactorily understood. The ratio between the virial radius and the scale radius, the so-called concentration, is found in simulations to be closely related to the mass and the redshift and low for cluster-sized haloes, but observed to be substantially higher at least in a subset of observed clusters. Haloes formed from cold dark matter should furthermore be richly substructured. We review theoretical and observational aspects of cluster cores here, discuss modifications by baryonic physics and observables that can provide better insight into the internal structure of clusters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite consistent progress in numerical simulations, the observable properties of galaxy clusters are difficult to predict ab initio. It is therefore important to compare both theoretical and observational results to a direct measure of the cluster mass. This can be done by measuring the gravitational lensing effects caused by the bending of light by the cluster mass distribution. In this review we discuss how this phenomenon can be used to determine cluster masses and study the mass distribution itself. As sample sizes increase, the accuracy of the weak lensing mass estimates needs to improve accordingly. We discuss the main practical aspects of these measurements. We review a number of applications and highlight some recent results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first half of this paper explores the origin of systematic biases in the measurement of weak gravitational lensing. Compared to previous work, we expand the investigation of point spread function instability and fold in for the first time the effects of non-idealities in electronic imaging detectors and imperfect galaxy shape measurement algorithms. Together, these now explain the additive ${\cal A}(\ell )$ and multiplicative ${\cal M}(\ell )$ systematics typically reported in current lensing measurements. We find that overall performance is driven by a product of a telescope/camera's absolute performance, and our knowledge about its performance.The second half of this paper propagates any residual shear measurement biases through to their effect on cosmological parameter constraints. Fully exploiting the statistical power of Stage IV weak lensing surveys will require additive biases $\overline{{\cal A}}\lesssim 1.8\times 10^{-12}$ and multiplicative biases $\overline{{\cal M}}\lesssim 4.0\times 10^{-3}$. These can be allocated between individual budgets in hardware, calibration data and software, using results from the first half of the paper.If instrumentation is stable and well calibrated, we find extant shear measurement software from Gravitational Lensing Accuracy Testing 2010 (GREAT10) already meet requirements on galaxies detected at signal-to-noise ratio = 40. Averaging over a population of galaxies with a realistic distribution of sizes, it also meets requirements for a 2D cosmic shear analysis from space. If used on fainter galaxies or for 3D cosmic shear tomography, existing algorithms would need calibration on simulations to avoid introducing bias at a level similar to the statistical error. Requirements on hardware and calibration data are discussed in more detail in a companion paper. Our analysis is intentionally general, but is specifically being used to drive the hardware and ground segment performance budget for the design of the European Space Agency's recently selected Euclid mission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT In this paper, we estimate the number of gravitational arcs detectable in a wide-field survey such as that which will be operated by the Euclid space mission, assuming a Λ cold dark matter cosmology. We use the publicly available code moka to obtain realistic deflection angle maps of mock gravitational lenses. The maps are processed by a ray-tracing code to estimate the strong lensing cross-sections of each lens. Our procedure involves (1) the generation of a light-cone which is populated with lenses drawn from a theoretical mass function, (2) the modelling of each single lens using a triaxial halo with a Navarro-Frenk-White density profile and theoretical concentration-mass relation, including substructures, (3) the determination of the lensing cross-section as a function of redshift for each lens in the light-cone and (4) the simulation of mock observations to characterize the redshift distribution of sources that will be detectable in the Euclid images. We focus on the so-called giant arcs, i.e. gravitational arcs characterized by large length-to-width ratios ( l/ w > 5, 7.5 and 10). We quantify the arc detectability at different significances above the level of the background. Performing 128 different realizations of a 15 000 deg2 survey, we find that the number of arcs detectable at 1σ above the local background will be [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Our aim in this paper is to perform a systematic study of the measures of mass and concentration estimated by fitting the convergence profile of a large sample of mock galaxy-cluster-sized lenses, created with the publicly available code moka. We have found that the first main contribution to the bias in mass and in concentration is the halo triaxiality; the second contribution is the presence of substructures within the host halo virial radius. We show that knowledge of the cluster elongation along the line of sight helps when correcting the mass bias, but it still retains a small negative bias for the concentration. If these mass and concentration biases can characterize the galaxy cluster sample of a wide field survey, it will be difficult to recover well within 1σ the cosmological parameters that mainly influence the c- M relation, using as a reference the three-dimensional c- M relation measured in cosmological N-body simulations. In this paper, we propose a method for correcting the c- M relation for projection effects and for adiabatic contraction. We suggest using these as references for real observed data. Correcting the mass and concentration estimates, as we propose, gives a measurement of the cosmological parameter within 1σ confidence contours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We perform a set of ray-tracing simulations, using numerical cluster models, aiming at evaluating how the galaxy cluster efficiency for producing strong lensing events changes in different cosmological models with dark energy. The sample of investigated clusters for which we present our results here is composed by seven dark matter halos. Each of them was simulated in eight different cosmological models with constant and time-variable equation of state of dark energy. For all the clusters in the sample, we have measured the lensing cross-sections for producing giant arcs, i.e., arcs having a minimum length-to-width ratio. We find that the lensing cross-section for giant arcs is sensitive to the equation of state of quintessence. Indeed, the optical depth, which can be translated into a number of arcs by multiplying by the correct density of source galaxy on the sky, spans more than one order of magnitude among different cosmological models. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We perform a set of ray-tracing simulations, using numerical cluster models, aiming at evaluating how the galaxy cluster efficiency for producing strong lensing events changes in different cosmological models with dark energy. The sample of investigated clusters for which we present our results here is composed by 7 dark matter halos. Each of them was simulated in 8 different cosmological models with constant and time-variable equation of state of dark energy. For all the clusters in the sample, we have measured the lensing cross sections for producing giant arcs, i.e. arcs having a minimum length-to-width ratio. We find that the lensing cross section for giant arcs is sensitive to the equation of state of quintessence. Indeed, the optical depth, which can be translated into a number of arcs by multiplying by the correct density of source galaxy on the sky, spans more than one order of magnitude among different cosmological models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the impact of merger events on the strong lensing properties of galaxy clusters. Previous lensing simulations were not able to resolve dynamical time-scales of cluster lenses, which arise on time-scales that are of the order of a Gyr. In this case study, we first describe qualitatively with an analytic model how some of the lensing properties of clusters are expected to change during merging events. We then analyse a numerically-simulated lens model for the variation in its efficiency for producing both tangential and radial arcs while a massive substructure falls on to the main cluster body. We find that: Thus, we conclude that accounting for these dynamical processes is very important for arc statistics studies. In particular, they may provide a possible explanation for the arc statistics problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We perform ray-tracing simulations evaluating the effect of a cD galaxy on the strong lensing properties of five galaxy cluster haloes obtained from N-body simulations. The cD galaxy is modelled using both axially symmetric and elliptical models and assuming several masses for its dark matter halo. The effect of the cD orientation with respect to the mass distribution of the host galaxy cluster is also investigated. The simulations are carried out in an open and a flat model universe with cosmological constant. We find that the enhancement of the cluster lensing cross-sections for long and thin arcs owing to the presence of a massive cD at the cluster centre is typically less than 100 per cent, depending on the model used for the cD galaxy and its orientation. The impact of the cD on the cluster efficiency for producing radially magnified images is larger only for those clusters with a lensing cross-section for radial arcs that is very small in absence of the central galaxy. We conclude that the presence of a cD galaxy at the cluster centre can only moderately influence the cluster efficiency for strong lensing and, in particular, fails to explain the discrepancy between the observed number of giant arcs in galaxy clusters and their abundance predicted from lensing simulations in the currently most favoured ΛCDM model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a joint shear-and-magnification weak-lensing analysis of a sample of 16 X-ray-regular and 4 high-magnification galaxy clusters at 0.19 ≲ z ≲ 0.69 selected from the Cluster Lensing And Supernova survey with Hubble (CLASH). Our analysis uses wide-field multi-color imaging, taken primarily with Suprime-Cam on the Subaru Telescope. From a stacked-shear-only analysis of the X-ray-selected subsample, we detect the ensemble-averaged lensing signal with a total signal-to-noise ratio of ≃ 25 in the radial range of 200-3500 kpc h–1, providing integrated constraints on the halo profile shape and concentration-mass relation. The stacked tangential-shear signal is well described by a family of standard density profiles predicted for dark-matter-dominated halos in gravitational equilibrium, namely, the Navarro-Frenk-White (NFW), truncated variants of NFW, and Einasto models. For the NFW model, we measure a mean concentration of at an effective halo mass of . We show that this is in excellent agreement with Λ cold dark matter (ΛCDM) predictions when the CLASH X-ray selection function and projection effects are taken into account. The best-fit Einasto shape parameter is , which is consistent with the NFW-equivalent Einasto parameter of ∼0.18. We reconstruct projected mass density profiles of all CLASH clusters from a joint likelihood analysis of shear-and-magnification data and measure cluster masses at several characteristic radii assuming an NFW density profile. We also derive an ensemble-averaged total projected mass profile of the X-ray-selected subsample by stacking their individual mass profiles. The stacked total mass profile, constrained by the shear+magnification data, is shown to be consistent with our shear-based halo-model predictions, including the effects of surrounding large-scale structure as a two-halo term, establishing further consistency in the context of the ΛCDM model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The next generation of large sky photometric surveys will finally be able to use arc statistics as a cosmological probe. Here, we present the first of a series of papers on this topic. In particular, we study how arc counts are sensitive to the variation of two cosmological parameters: the (total) matter density parameter, Ωm, and the normalization of the primordial power spectrum, expressed in terms of σ8. Both these parameters influence the abundances of collapsed structures and their internal structure. We compute the expected number of gravitational arcs with various length-to-width ratios in mock light cones, by varying these cosmological parameters in the ranges 0.1 ≤ Ωm ≤ 0.5 and 0.6 ≤ σ8 ≤ 1. We find that the arc counts dependence on Ωm and σ8 is similar, but not identical, to that of the halo counts. We investigate how the precision of the constraints on the cosmological parameters based on arc counts depend on the survey area. We find that the constraining power of arc statistics degrades critically only for surveys covering an area smaller than 10 per cent of the whole sky. Finally, we consider the case in which the search for arcs is done only in frames where galaxy clusters have been previously identified. Adopting the selection function for galaxy clusters expected to be detected from photometric data in future wide surveys, we find that less than 10 per cent of the arcs will be missed, with only a small degradation of the corresponding cosmological constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: High resolution, numerical simulations of 17 cluster-sized dark-matter haloes in eight different cosmologies with and without dynamical dark-energy confirm the picture that core halo densities are imprinted early during their formation by the mean cosmological density. Quite independent of cosmology, halo concentrations have a log-normal distribution with a scatter of ∼0.2 about the mean. We propose a simple scaling relation for halo concentrations in dark-energy cosmologies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]