The central image of a strongly lensed background source places constraints on the foreground lens galaxys inner mass profile slope, core radius and mass of its nuclear supermassive black hole. Using high-resolution long-baseline Atacama Large Millim
eter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations and archival $Hubble~Space~Telescope$ ($HST$) imaging, we model the gravitational lens H-ATLAS J090311.6+003906 (also known as SDP.81) and search for the demagnified central image. There is central continuum emission from the lens galaxys active galactic nucleus (AGN) but no evidence of the central lensed image in any molecular line. We use the CO maps to determine the flux limit of the central image excluding the AGN continuum. We predict the flux density of the central image and use the limits from the ALMA data to constrain the innermost mass distribution of the lens. For a power-law profile with a core radius of $0.15^{primeprime}$ measured from $HST$ photometry of the lens galaxy assuming that the central flux is attributed to the AGN, we find that a black hole mass of $mathrm{log(M_{BH}/M_{odot})} gtrsim 8.5$ is preferred. Deeper observations with a detection of the central image will significantly improve the constraints of the innermost mass distribution of the lens galaxy.
We identify a strong lensing galaxy in the cluster IRC 0218 (also known as XMM-LSS J02182$-$05102) that is spectroscopically confirmed to be at $z=1.62$, making it the highest-redshift strong lens galaxy known. The lens is one of the two brightest cl
uster galaxies and lenses a background source galaxy into an arc and a counterimage. With Hubble Space Telescope (HST) grism and Keck/LRIS spectroscopy, we measure the source redshift to be $z_{rm S}=2.26$. Using HST imaging in ACS/F475W, ACS/F814W, WFC3/F125W, and WFC3/F160W, we model the lens mass distribution with an elliptical power-law profile and account for the effects of the cluster halo and nearby galaxies. The Einstein radius is $theta_{rm E}=0.38^{+0.02}_{-0.01}$ ($3.2_{-0.1}^{+0.2}$ kpc) and the total enclosed mass is M$_{rm tot} (< theta_{rm E})=1.8^{+0.2}_{-0.1}times10^{11}~{rm M}_{odot}$. We estimate that the cluster environment contributes $sim10$% of this total mass. Assuming a Chabrier IMF, the dark matter fraction within $theta_{{rm E}}$ is $f_{rm DM}^{{rm Chab}} = 0.3_{-0.3}^{+0.1}$, while a Salpeter IMF is marginally inconsistent with the enclosed mass ($f_{rm DM}^{{rm Salp}} = -0.3_{-0.5}^{+0.2}$). The total magnification of the source is $mu_{rm tot}=2.1_{-0.3}^{+0.4}$. The source has at least one bright compact region offset from the source center. Emission from Ly$alpha$ and [O III] are likely to probe different regions in the source.
We investigate the gravitational lensing properties of lines of sight containing multiple cluster-scale halos, motivated by their ability to lens very high-redshift (z ~ 10) sources into detectability. We control for the total mass along the line of
sight, isolating the effects of distributing the mass among multiple halos and of varying the physical properties of the halos. Our results show that multiple-halo lines of sight can increase the magnified source-plane region compared to the single cluster lenses typically targeted for lensing studies, and thus are generally better fields for detecting very high-redshift sources. The configurations that result in optimal lensing cross sections benefit from interactions between the lens potentials of the halos when they overlap somewhat on the sky, creating regions of high magnification in the source plane not present when the halos are considered individually. The effect of these interactions on the lensing cross section can even be comparable to changing the total mass of the lens from 10^15 M_sun to 3x10^15 M_sun. The gain in lensing cross section increases as the mass is split into more halos, provided that the lens potentials are projected close enough to interact with each other. A nonzero projected halo angular separation, equal halo mass ratio, and high projected halo concentration are the best mass configurations, whereas projected halo ellipticity, halo triaxiality, and the relative orientations of the halos are less important. Such high mass, multiple-halo lines of sight exist in the SDSS.
Using new photometric and spectroscopic data in the fields of nine strong gravitational lenses that lie in galaxy groups, we analyze the effects of both the local group environment and line-of-sight galaxies on the lens potential. We use Monte Carlo
simulations to derive the shear directly from measurements of the complex lens environment, providing the first detailed independent check of the shear obtained from lens modeling. We account for possible tidal stripping of the group galaxies by varying the fraction of total mass apportioned between the group dark matter halo and individual group galaxies. The environment produces an average shear of gamma = 0.08 (ranging from 0.02 to 0.17), significant enough to affect quantities derived from lens observables. However, the direction and magnitude of the shears do not match those obtained from lens modeling in three of the six 4-image systems in our sample (B1422, RXJ1131, and WFI2033). The source of this disagreement is not clear, implying that the assumptions inherent in both the environment and lens model approaches must be reconsidered. If only the local group environment of the lens is included, the average shear is gamma = 0.05 (ranging from 0.01 to 0.14), indicating that line-of-sight contributions to the lens potential are not negligible. We isolate the effects of various theoretical and observational uncertainties on our results. Of those uncertainties, the scatter in the Faber-Jackson relation and error in the group centroid position dominate. Future surveys of lens environments should prioritize spectroscopic sampling of both the local lens environment and objects along the line of sight, particularly those bright (I < 21.5) galaxies projected within 5 of the lens.
