1. Measuring the Stellar-to-Halo Mass Relation at $\sim10^{10}$ Solar masses, using space-based imaging of galaxy-galaxy strong lenses
- Author
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Wang, Kaihao, Cao, Xiaoyue, Li, Ran, Nightingale, James W., He, Qiuhan, Amvrosiadis, Aristeidis, Massey, Richard, von Wietersheim-Kramsta, Maximilian, Fung, Leo W. H., Frenk, Carlos S., Cole, Shaun, Robertson, Andrew, Lange, Samuel C., and Ma, Xianghao
- Subjects
Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies - Abstract
The stellar-to-halo mass relation (SHMR) embodies the joint evolution of galaxies and their host dark matter halos. However, the relation is poorly constrained at sub-galactic masses, because the stellar emission from such objects is so faint. However, it is possible to directly detect the mass of halos along the line of sight to a strong gravitational lens, when they perturb one of its multiple images. Space telescopes including Euclid, CSST, and Roman will soon discover millions of galaxy-galaxy strong lensing systems. We simulate Euclid-like imaging of a typical lens galaxy, and find that a lensing reconstruction is sensitive to $3\times10^{10}$ subhalos with various positions and concentrations, at statistical signficance $>$$3.6\sigma$. The subhalo mass can be measured without bias, provided the model simultaneously fits light from both the main lens and the subhalo. A future sample of 48 subhalos with $\geqslant$$5\sigma$ detection significance would constrain the SHMR at this mass range with $1\sigma$ uncertainty of 0.045 dex: distinguishing between different theoretical predictions at the sub-galactic scale. Follow-up spectroscopy is needed to measure lens and source redshifts; follow-up imaging at greater spatial resolution and depth would substantially improve the measurement, and eliminate false-positives at even lower halo masses., Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, submitted for publication in MNRAS
- Published
- 2025