Strong Gravitational Lensing and Microlensing of Supernovae

Abstract

Strong gravitational lensing and microlensing of supernovae (SNe) are emerging as a new probe of cosmology and astrophysics in recent years. We provide an overview of this nascent research field, starting with a summary of the first discoveries of strongly lensed SNe. We describe the use of the time delays between multiple SN images as a way to measure cosmological distances and thus constrain cosmological parameters, particularly the Hubble constant, whose value is currently under heated debates. New methods for measuring the time delays in lensed SNe have been developed, and the sample of lensed SNe from the upcoming Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) is expected to provide competitive cosmological constraints. Lensed SNe are also powerful astrophysical probes. We review the usage of lensed SNe to constrain SN progenitors, acquire high-z SN spectra through lensing magnifications, infer SN sizes via microlensing, and measure properties of dust in galaxies. The current challenge in the field is the rarity and difficulty in finding lensed SNe. We describe various methods and ongoing efforts to find these spectacular explosions, forecast the properties of the expected sample of lensed SNe from upcoming surveys particularly the LSST, and summarize the observational follow-up requirements to enable the various scientific studies. We anticipate the upcoming years to be exciting with a boom in lensed SN discoveries.

JWST Photometric Time-delay and Magnification Measurements for the Triply Imaged Type Ia “SN H0pe” at z = 1.78

“…Overall, while the advantages of using SNe for time-delay cosmography relative to other probes have been well documented (e.g., Refsdal 1964;Kelly et al 2015;Goobar et al 2017;Goldstein et al 2018;Huber et al 2019;Pierel & Rodney 2019;Suyu et al 2020;Pierel et al 2021;Rodney et al 2021;Suyu et al 2024), only a single strongly lensed SN (the core-collapse SN "Refsdal"; Kelly et al 2015) Windhorst et al 2023) in NIRCam observations of the PLCK G165.7+67.0 cluster of galaxies (Figure 1). Previous observations of the PLCK G165.7+67.0 cluster are described in Cañameras et al (2015), Harrington et al (2016), Cañameras et al (2018), Frye et al (2019), and Pascale et al (2022.…”

“…Precise measurements of this "time delay" yield a direct distance measurement to the lens system that constrains the Hubble constant (H 0 ) in a single step (e.g., Refsdal 1964;Paraficz & Hjorth 2009;Linder 2011;Treu & Marshall 2016;Grillo et al 2018Grillo et al , 2020Birrer et al 2022b;Treu et al 2022;Suyu et al 2024). Quasars have historically been used for this purpose (e.g., Vuissoz et al 2008;Tewes et al 2013;Bonvin et al 2017Bonvin et al , 2018Bonvin et al , 2019aBirrer et al 2019;Wong et al 2020), since supernovae (SNe) exploding in multiply imaged galaxies are relatively rare, with only a handful discovered thus far (Kelly et al 2015;Goobar et al 2017Goobar et al , 2023Rodney et al 2021;Chen et al 2022;Kelly et al 2022;Pierel et al 2023).…”

Determining Cosmological-model-independent H 0 with Gravitationally Lensed Supernova Refsdal

“…Strongly lensed supernovae (SLSNe) could provide timedelay measurements with comparative precision to lensed quasars but requiring shorter observation periods of ∼months (Oguri & Kawano 2003;Dobler & Keeton 2006;Goobar et al 2017;Oguri 2019;Liao et al 2022;Suyu et al 2024) (J2000); hereafter MACS J1149) cluster. The clusterʼs gravitational potential also creates multiple images of the spiral SN host galaxy at z = 1.49.…”

Lensed Type Ia Supernova “Encore” at z = 2: The First Instance of Two Multiply Imaged Supernovae in the Same Host Galaxy

“…Precise measurements of this "time delay" yield a direct distance measurement to the lens system that constrains the Hubble constant (H 0 ) in a single step (e.g., Refsdal 1964;Paraficz & Hjorth 2009;Linder 2011;Treu & Marshall 2016;Grillo et al 2018Grillo et al , 2020Grillo et al , 2024Birrer et al 2022b;Treu et al 2022;Kelly et al 2023a;Suyu et al 2024). While this has been accomplished with quasars (e.g., Kundić et al 1997;Schechter et al 1997;Burud et al 2002;Hjorth et al 2002;Vuissoz et al 2008;Suyu et al 2010;Tewes et al 2013;Bonvin et al 2017Bonvin et al , 2018Bonvin et al , 2019Birrer et al 2019Birrer et al , 2020Chen et al 2019;Shajib et al 2020Shajib et al , 2023Wong et al 2020), there is much discussion about the advantages of using supernovae (SNe) instead to leverage a variety of valuable characteristics such as predictable evolution, simplicity of observations, standardizable brightness (for Type Ia SNe, SNe Ia), and mitigated microlensing effects (e.g., Foxley-Marrable et al 2018;Goldstein et al 2018;Pierel & Rodney 2019;Ding et al 2021;Huber et al 2021;Pierel et al 2021Pierel et al , 2024Birrer et al 2022a;Chen et al 2024;Pascale et al 2024).…”