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The Comparison of Light and Matter Distributions: Using Strong Lensing Galaxies to Examine Dark Matter Structure

Presentation #139.15 in the session Galaxy Clusters/Large Scale Structure, Cosmic Distance — iPoster Session.

Published onJun 29, 2022
The Comparison of Light and Matter Distributions: Using Strong Lensing Galaxies to Examine Dark Matter Structure

The properties of the mass and light distributions for galaxy clusters are sensitive to deviations from the expected alignment of these distributions according to the Cold Dark Matter (CDM) Paradigm. Therefore, measurement of the position angles, ellipticities, and locations/centroids of the stars/BCGs, the hot intra-cluster medium (ICM), and the total matter content for our cluster sample will give us a way to test CDM predictions for galaxy clusters that have achieved relaxation. In order to simultaneously make these measurements on all 3 of our desired distributions, we need a sample of strong lensing galaxy clusters with defined lensing models such that we are able to derive well constrained mass distributions. Consequently, we use formerly derived strong lensing mass models for a sample of 37 galaxy clusters from the SDSS Giant Arcs Survey (SGAS) to make measurements of their overall mass distributions which include dark matter contributions. In conjunction, we use elliptical isophote fitting methods and GALFIT modeling on HST WFC3/IR imaging data for our sample to make measurements on their visible light distributions and use similar ellipse fitting methods on Chandra ACIS-I X-ray observations of these clusters to make measurements of the hot intracluster medium (ICM) distribution. Using the measurements derived from our strong lensing sample, we demonstrate how strong lensing galaxy clusters can provide a powerful observational test of CDM structure predictions derived from simulation.

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