Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2002-10-04
Astrophys.J. 583 (2003) 584-593
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
11 pages, 9 figures, emulateapj5, accepted for publication in ApJ
Scientific paper
10.1086/345431
Strong gravitational lensing of distant supernovae (SNe), particularly Type Ia's, has some exploitable properties not available when other sorts of cosmologically distant sources are lensed. One such property is that the ``standard candle'' nature of the SN at peak brightness allows a direct determination of the lensing magnification factor for each well observed image. Another is that the duration of an SN event is of the same order as the differential time delays between the various lens images. The comparable time scales of the photometric event and the time delay invite a variety of applications, including high precision measurements of the delay and the targeting of especially interesting phases of the explosion for intensive observation when they appear in trailing images. As an initial exploration of these possibilities we present calculations of SN lensing statistics in a ``concordance cosmology''. We emphasize magnification and time delay effects. Plausible SN surveys, such as the proposed SNAP space mission, would discover several to some tens of strongly lensed SNe Ia per year, and at least a few of these will be at redshifts well beyond those that would be accessible via unlensed events. The total number of such anomalously high redshift SNe Ia will be a useful test of high redshift star formation models. SN surveys of finite duration will, of course, miss the appearance of some images; we quantify this selection bias. Finally, we investigate how well the appearance of trailing images can be predicted based on various amounts of available information on the lensing event. Knowledge of the magnification factor for the leading image makes it possible to predict the appearance of a trailing image relatively accurately if the lens redshift is also known. (Abridged)
Oguri Masamune
Suto Yasushi
Turner Edwin L.
No associations
LandOfFree
Gravitational Lensing Magnification and Time Delay Statistics for Distant Supernovae does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.
If you have personal experience with Gravitational Lensing Magnification and Time Delay Statistics for Distant Supernovae, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Gravitational Lensing Magnification and Time Delay Statistics for Distant Supernovae will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-237945