Time-delay cosmography of lensed quasars has achieved 2.4% precision on the measurement of the Hubble constant, H0. As part of an ongoing effort to uncover and control systematic uncertainties, we investigate three potential sources: 1- stellar kinematics, 2- line-of-sight effects, and 3- the deflector mass model. To meet this goal in a quantitative way, we reproduced the H0LiCOW/SHARP/STRIDES (hereafter TDCOSMO) procedures on a set of real and simulated data, and we find the following. First, stellar kinematics cannot be a dominant source of error or bias since we find that a systematic change of 10% of measured velocity dispersion leads to only a 0.7% shift on H0 from the seven lenses analyzed by TDCOSMO. Second, we find no bias to arise from incorrect estimation of the line-of-sight effects. Third, we show that elliptical composite (stars + dark matter halo), power-law, and cored power-law mass profiles have the flexibility to yield a broad range in H0 values. However, the TDCOSMO procedures that model the data with both composite and power-law mass profiles are informative. If the models agree, as we observe in real systems owing to the “bulge-halo” conspiracy, H0 is recovered precisely and accurately by both models. If the two models disagree, as in the case of some pathological models illustrated here, the TDCOSMO procedure either discriminates between them through the goodness of fit, or it accounts for the discrepancy in the final error bars provided by the analysis. This conclusion is consistent with a reanalysis of six of the TDCOSMO (real) lenses: the composite model yields H0 = 74.0−1.8+1.7 km s−1 Mpc−1, while the power-law model yields 74.2−1.6+1.6 km s−1 Mpc−1. In conclusion, we find no evidence of bias or errors larger than the current statistical uncertainties reported by TDCOSMO.

In this paper we introduce the SEAGLE (i.e. Simulating EAGLE LEnses) program, that approaches the study of galaxy formation through strong gravitational lensing, using a suite of high-resolution hydrodynamic simulations, Evolution and Assembly of GaLaxies and their Environments (EAGLE) project. We introduce the simulation and analysis pipeline and present the first set of results from our analysis of early-type galaxies. We identify and extract an ensemble of simulated lens galaxies and use the GLAMER ray-tracing lensing code to create mock lenses similar to those observed in the SLACS and SL2S surveys, using a range of source parameters and galaxy orientations, including observational effects such as the Point-Spread-Function (PSF), pixelization and noise levels, representative of single-orbit observations with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) using the ACS-F814W filter. We subsequently model these mock lenses using the code LENSED, treating them in the same way as observed lenses. We also estimate the mass model parameters directly from the projected surface mass density of the simulated galaxy, using an identical mass model family. We perform a three-way comparison of all the measured quantities with real lenses. We find the average total density slope of EAGLE lenses, t = 2.26 (0.25 rms) to be higher than SL2S, t = 2.16 or SLACS, t = 2.08. We find a very strong correlation between the external shear (γ) and the complex ellipticity ( ), with γ ∼ /4. This correlation indicates a degeneracy in the lens mass modeling. We also see a dispersion between lens modeling and direct fitting results, indicating systematical biases.

In the coming years, strong gravitational lens discoveries are expected to increase in frequency by two orders of magnitude. Lens-modelling techniques are being developed to prepare for the coming massive influx of new lens data, and blind tests of lens reconstruction with simulated data are needed for validation. In this paper we present a systematic blind study of a sample of 15 simulated strong gravitational lenses from the EAGLE suite of hydrodynamic simulations. We model these lenses with a free-form technique and evaluate reconstructed mass distributions using criteria based on shape, orientation, and lensed image reconstruction. Especially useful is a lensing analogue of the Roche potential in binary star systems, which we call the lensing Roche potential. This we introduce in order to factor out the well-known problem of steepness or masssheet degeneracy. Einstein radii are on average well recovered with a relative error of ∼ 5% for quads and ∼ 25% for doubles; the position angle of ellipticity is on average also reproduced well up to ±10 • , but the reconstructed mass maps tend to be too round and too shallow. It is also easy to reproduce the lensed images, but optimising on this criterion does not guarantee better reconstruction of the mass distribution.

We use nine different galaxy formation scenarios in ten cosmological simulation boxes from the EAGLE suite of ΛCDM hydrodynamical simulations to assess the impact of feedback mechanisms in galaxy formation and compare these to observed strong gravitational lenses. To compare observations with simulations, we create strong lenses with M* > 1011 M⊙ with the appropriate resolution and noise level, and model them with an elliptical power-law mass model to constrain their total mass density slope. We also obtain the mass-size relation of the simulated lens-galaxy sample. We find significant variation in the total mass density slope at the Einstein radius and in the projected stellar mass-size relation, mainly due to different implementations of stellar and AGN feedback. We find that for lens selected galaxies, models with either too weak or too strong stellar and/or AGN feedback fail to explain the distribution of observed mass-density slopes, with the counter-intuitive trend that increasing the feedback steepens the mass density slope around the Einstein radius (≈ 3-10 kpc). Models in which stellar feedback becomes inefficient at high gas densities, or weaker AGN feedback with a higher duty cycle, produce strong lenses with total mass density slopes close to isothermal (i.e. −dlog (ρ)/dlog (r) ≈ 2.0) and slope distributions statistically agreeing with observed strong lens galaxies in SLACS and BELLS. Agreement is only slightly worse with the more heterogeneous SL2S lens galaxy sample. Observations of strong-lens selected galaxies thus appear to favor models with relatively weak feedback in massive galaxies.

Strong gravitational lensing is a powerful tool to measure cosmological parameters and to study galaxy evolution mechanisms. However, quantitative strong lensing studies often require mock observations. To capture the full complexity of galaxies, the lensing galaxy is often drawn from high resolution, dark matter only or hydro-dynamical simulations. These have their own limitations, but the way we use them to emulate mock lensed systems may also introduce significant artefacts. In this work we identify and explore the specific impact of mass truncation on simulations of strong lenses by applying different truncation schemes to a fiducial density profile with conformal isodensity contours. Our main finding is that improper mass truncation can introduce undesired artificial shear. The amplitude of the spurious shear depends on the shape and size of the truncation area as well as on the slope and ellipticity of the lens density profile. Due to this effect, the value of H0 or the shear amplitude inferred by modelling those systems may be biased by several percents. However, we show that the effect becomes negligible provided that the lens projected map extends over at least 50 times the Einstein radius.