arXiv subjects

Raphael Gavazzi

Publications and source records attributed to Raphael Gavazzi.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2018

The Strong Gravitationally Lensed Herschel Galaxy HLock01: Optical Spectroscopy Reveals a Close Galaxy Merger with Evidence of Inflowing Gas

The submillimeter galaxy (SMG) HERMES J105751.1+573027 (hereafter HLock01) at z = 2.9574 +/- 0.0001 is one of the brightest gravitationally lensed sources discovered in the Herschel Multi-tiered Extragalactic Survey. Apart from the high flux densities in the far-infrared, it is also extremely bright in the rest-frame ultraviolet (UV), with a total apparent magnitude m_UV = 19.7 mag. We report here deep spectroscopic observations with the Gran Telescopio Canarias of the optically bright lensed images of HLock01. Our results suggest that HLock01 is a merger system composed of the Herschel-selected SMG and an optically bright Lyman break-like galaxy (LBG), separated by only 3.3 kpc in projection. While the SMG appears very massive (M* = 5x10^11 Msun), with a highly extinguished stellar component (A_V = 4.3), the LBG is a young, lower-mass (M* = 1x10^10 Msun), but still luminous (10xL*_UV) satellite galaxy. Detailed analysis of the high signal-to-noise (S/N) rest-frame UV spectrum of the LBG shows complex kinematics of the gas, exhibiting both blueshifted and redshifted absorption components. While the blueshifted component is associated with strong galactic outflows from the massive stars in the LBG, as is common in most star-forming galaxies, the redshifted component may be associated with gas inflow seen along a favorable sightline to the LBG. We also find evidence of an extended gas reservoir around HLock01 at an impact parameter of 110 kpc, through the detection of C II 1334$Å$ absorption in the red wing of a bright Ly-alpha emitter at z = 3.327. The data presented here highlight the power of gravitational lensing in high S/N studies to probe deeply into the physics of high-z star forming galaxies.

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arXiv2017

On the projected mass distribution around galaxy clusters : a Lagrangian theory of harmonic power spectra

Gravitational lensing allows to quantify the angular distribution of the convergence field around clusters of galaxies to constrain their connectivity to the cosmic web. We describe in this paper the corresponding theory in Lagrangian space where analytical results can be obtained by identifying clusters to peaks in the initial field. We derive the three-point Gaussian statistics of a two-dimensional field and its first and second derivatives. The formalism allows us to study the statistics of the field in a shell around a central peak, in particular its multipolar decomposition. The peak condition is shown to significantly remove power from the dipolar contribution and to modify the monopole and quadrupole. As expected, higher order multipoles are not significantly modified by the constraint. Analytical predictions are successfully checked against measurements in Gaussian random fields. The effect of substructures and radial weighting is shown to be small and does not change the qualitative picture. The non-linear evolution is shown to induce a non-linear bias of all multipoles proportional to the cluster mass.We predict the Gaussian and weakly non-Gaussian statistics of multipolar moments of a two-dimensional field around a peak as a proxy for the azimuthal distribution of the convergence field around a cluster of galaxies. A quantitative estimate of this multipolar decomposition of the convergence field around clusters in numerical simulations of structure formation and in observations will be presented in two forthcoming papers.

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arXiv2017

Revisiting the bulge-halo conspiracy I: Dependence on galaxy properties and halo mass

We carry out a systematic investigation of the total mass density profile of massive (Mstar>2e11 Msun) early-type galaxies and its dependence on galactic properties and host halo mass with the aid of a variety of lensing/dynamical data and large mock galaxy catalogs. The latter are produced via semi-empirical models that, by design, are based on just a few basic input assumptions. Galaxies, with measured stellar masses, effective radii and Sérsic indices, are assigned, via abundance matching relations, host dark matter halos characterized by a typical LCDM profile. Our main results are as follows: (i) In line with observational evidence, our semi-empirical models naturally predict that the total, mass-weighted density slope at the effective radius gamma' is not universal, steepening for more compact and/or massive galaxies, but flattening with increasing host halo mass. (ii) Models characterized by a Salpeter or variable initial mass function and uncontracted dark matter profiles are in good agreement with the data, while a Chabrier initial mass function and/or adiabatic contractions/expansions of the dark matter halos are highly disfavored. (iii) Currently available data on the mass density profiles of very massive galaxies (Mstar>1e12 Msun), with Mhalo>3e14 Msun, favor instead models with a stellar profile flatter than a Sérsic one in the very inner regions (r<3-5 kpc), and a cored NFW or Einasto dark matter profile with median halo concentration a factor of ~2 or <1.3, respectively, higher than those typically predicted by N-body numerical simulations.

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arXiv2016

The Horizon-AGN simulation: morphological diversity of galaxies promoted by AGN feedback

The interplay between cosmic gas accretion on to galaxies and galaxy mergers drives the observed morphological diversity of galaxies. By comparing the state-of-the-art hydrodynamical cosmological simulations Horizon-AGN and Horizon-noAGN, we unambiguously identify the critical role of active galactic nuclei (AGN) in setting up the correct galaxy morphology for the massive end of the population. With AGN feedback, typical kinematic and morpho-metric properties of galaxy populations as well as the galaxy-halo mass relation are in much better agreement with observations. Only AGN feedback allows massive galaxies at the centre of groups and clusters to become ellipticals, while without AGN feedback those galaxies reform discs. It is the merger-enhanced AGN activity that is able to freeze the morphological type of the post-merger remnant by durably quenching its quiescent star formation. Hence morphology is shown to be driven not only by mass but also by the nature of cosmic accretion: at constant galaxy mass, ellipticals are galaxies that are mainly assembled through mergers, while discs are preferentially built from the in situ star formation fed by smooth cosmic gas infall.

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arXiv2016

Redshift and luminosity evolution of the intrinsic alignments of galaxies in Horizon-AGN

Intrinsic galaxy shape and angular momentum alignments can arise in cosmological large-scale structure due to tidal interactions or galaxy formation processes. Cosmological hydrodynamical simulations have recently come of age as a tool to study these alignments and their contamination to weak gravitational lensing. We probe the redshift and luminosity evolution of intrinsic alignments in Horizon-AGN between z=0 and z=3 for galaxies with an r-band absolute magnitude of <-20. Alignments transition from being radial at low redshifts and high luminosities, dominated by the contribution of ellipticals, to being tangential at high redshift and low luminosities, where discs dominate the signal. This cannot be explained by the evolution of the fraction of ellipticals and discs alone: intrinsic evolution in the amplitude of alignments is necessary. The alignment amplitude of elliptical galaxies alone is smaller in amplitude by a factor of ~2, but has similar luminosity and redshift evolution as in current observations and in the nonlinear tidal alignment model at projected separations of > 1 Mpc. Alignments of discs are null in projection and consistent with current low redshift observations. The combination of the two populations yields an overall amplitude a factor of ~4 lower than observed alignments of luminous red galaxies with a steeper luminosity dependence. The restriction on accurate galaxy shapes implies that the galaxy population in the simulation is complete only to an r-band absolute magnitude of <-20. Higher resolution simulations will be necessary to avoid extrapolation of the intrinsic alignment predictions to the range of luminosities probed by future surveys.

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arXiv2015

Intrinsic alignments of galaxies in the Horizon-AGN cosmological hydrodynamical simulation

The intrinsic alignments of galaxies are recognised as a contaminant to weak gravitational lensing measurements. In this work, we study the alignment of galaxy shapes and spins at low redshift ($z\sim 0.5$) in Horizon-AGN, an adaptive-mesh-refinement hydrodynamical cosmological simulation box of 100 Mpc/h a side with AGN feedback implementation. We find that spheroidal galaxies in the simulation show a tendency to be aligned radially towards over-densities in the dark matter density field and other spheroidals. This trend is in agreement with observations, but the amplitude of the signal depends strongly on how shapes are measured and how galaxies are selected in the simulation. Disc galaxies show a tendency to be oriented tangentially around spheroidals in three-dimensions. While this signal seems suppressed in projection, this does not guarantee that disc alignments can be safely ignored in future weak lensing surveys. The shape alignments of luminous galaxies in Horizon-AGN are in agreement with observations and other simulation works, but we find less alignment for lower luminosity populations. We also characterize the systematics of galaxy shapes in the simulation and show that they can be safely neglected when measuring the correlation of the density field and galaxy ellipticities.

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arXiv2015

Space Warps II. New Gravitational Lens Candidates from the CFHTLS Discovered through Citizen Science

We report the discovery of 29 promising (and 59 total) new lens candidates from the CFHT Legacy Survey (CFHTLS) based on about 11 million classifications performed by citizen scientists as part of the first Space Warps lens search. The goal of the blind lens search was to identify lens candidates missed by robots (the RingFinder on galaxy scales and ArcFinder on group/cluster scales) which had been previously used to mine the CFHTLS for lenses. We compare some properties of the samples detected by these algorithms to the Space Warps sample and find them to be broadly similar. The image separation distribution calculated from the Space Warps sample shows that previous constraints on the average density profile of lens galaxies are robust. SpaceWarps recovers about 65% of known lenses, while the new candidates show a richer variety compared to those found by the two robots. This detection rate could be increased to 80% by only using classifications performed by expert volunteers (albeit at the cost of a lower purity), indicating that the training and performance calibration of the citizen scientists is very important for the success of Space Warps. In this work we present the SIMCT pipeline, used for generating in situ a sample of realistic simulated lensed images. This training sample, along with the false positives identified during the search, has a legacy value for testing future lens finding algorithms. We make the pipeline and the training set publicly available.

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arXiv2015

ALMA maps the Star-Forming Regions in a Dense Gas Disk at z~3

We exploit long-baseline ALMA sub-mm observations of the lensed star-forming galaxy SDP 81 at z=3.042 to investigate the properties of inter-stellar medium on scales of 50-100pc. The kinematics of the CO gas within this system are well described by a rotationally-supported disk with an inclination-corrected rotation speed, v=320+/-20km/s and a dynamical mass of M=(3.5+/-1.0)x10^10Mo within a radius of 1.5 kpc. The disk is gas rich and unstable, with a Toomre parameter, Q=0.30+/-0.10 and so should collapse in to star-forming regions with Jeans length L_J~130pc. We identify five star-forming regions within the ISM on these scales and show that their scaling relations between luminosity, line-widths and sizes are significantly offset from those typical of molecular clouds in local Galaxies (Larson's relations). These offsets are likely to be caused by the high external hydrostatic pressure for the interstellar medium (ISM), P/kB=(40+/-20)x10^7K/cm3, which is ~10,000x higher than the typical ISM pressure in the Milky Way. The physical conditions of the star-forming ISM and giant molecular clouds appears to be similar to the those found in the densest environments in the local Universe, such as those in the Galactic center.

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arXiv2015

Multiple Images of a Highly Magnified Supernova Formed by an Early-Type Cluster Galaxy Lens

In 1964, Refsdal hypothesized that a supernova whose light traversed multiple paths around a strong gravitational lens could be used to measure the rate of cosmic expansion. We report the discovery of such a system. In Hubble Space Telescope imaging, we have found four images of a single supernova forming an Einstein cross configuration around a redshift z=0.54 elliptical galaxy in the MACS J1149.6+2223 cluster. The cluster's gravitational potential also creates multiple images of the z=1.49 spiral supernova host galaxy, and a future appearance of the supernova elsewhere in the cluster field is expected. The magnifications and staggered arrivals of the supernova images probe the cosmic expansion rate, as well as the distribution of matter in the galaxy and cluster lenses.

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arXiv2015

Extensive light profile fitting of galaxy-scale strong lenses

We investigate the merits of a massive forward modeling of ground-based optical imaging as a diagnostic for the strong lensing nature of Early-Type Galaxies, in the light of which blurred and faint Einstein rings can hide. We simulate several thousand mock strong lenses under ground- and space-based conditions as arising from the deflection of an exponential disk by a foreground de Vaucouleurs light profile whose lensing potential is described by a Singular Isothermal Ellipsoid. We then fit for the lensed light distribution with sl_fit after having subtracted the foreground light emission off (ideal case) and also after having fitted the deflector's light with galfit. By setting thresholds in the output parameter space, we can decide the lens/not-a-lens status of each system. We finally apply our strategy to a sample of 517 lens candidates present in the CFHTLS data to test the consistency of our selection approach. The efficiency of the fast modeling method at recovering the main lens parameters like Einstein radius, total magnification or total lensed flux, is quite comparable under CFHT and HST conditions when the deflector is perfectly subtracted off (only possible in simulations), fostering a sharp distinction between the good and the bad candidates. Conversely, for a more realistic subtraction, a substantial fraction of the lensed light is absorbed into the deflector's model, which biases the subsequent fitting of the rings and then disturbs the selection process. We quantify completeness and purity of the lens finding method in both cases. This suggests that the main limitation currently resides in the subtraction of the foreground light. Provided further enhancement of the latter, the direct forward modeling of large numbers of galaxy-galaxy strong lenses thus appears tractable and could constitute a competitive lens finder in the next generation of wide-field imaging surveys.

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arXiv2015

Intrinsic alignment of simulated galaxies in the cosmic web: implications for weak lensing surveys

The intrinsic alignment of galaxy shapes (by means of their angular momentum) and their cross-correlation with the surrounding dark matter tidal field are investigated using the 160 000, z=1.2 synthetic galaxies extracted from the high-resolution cosmological hydrodynamical simulation Horizon-AGN. One- and two-point statistics of the spin of the stellar component are measured as a function of mass and colour. For the low-mass galaxies, this spin is locally aligned with the tidal field `filamentary' direction while, for the high-mass galaxies, it is perpendicular to both filaments and walls. The bluest galaxies of our synthetic catalog are more strongly correlated with the surrounding tidal field than the reddest galaxies, and this correlation extends up to 10 Mpc/h comoving distance. We also report a correlation of the projected ellipticities of blue, intermediate mass galaxies on a similar scale at a level of 10^(-4) which could be a concern for cosmic shear measurements. We do not report any measurable intrinsic alignments of the reddest galaxies of our sample. This work is a first step toward the use of very realistic catalog of synthetic galaxies to evaluate the contamination of weak lensing measurement by the intrinsic galactic alignments.

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arXiv2014

The SL2S Galaxy-scale Lens Sample. V. Dark Matter Halos and Stellar IMF of Massive Early-type Galaxies out to Redshift 0.8

We investigate the cosmic evolution of the internal structure of massive early-type galaxies over half of the age of the Universe. We perform a joint lensing and stellar dynamics analysis of a sample of 81 strong lenses from the SL2S and SLACS surveys and combine the results with a hierarchical Bayesian inference method to measure the distribution of dark matter mass and stellar IMF across the population of massive early-type galaxies. Lensing selection effects are taken into account. We find that the dark matter mass projected within the inner 5 kpc increases for increasing redshift, decreases for increasing stellar mass density, but is roughly constant along the evolutionary tracks of early-type galaxies. The average dark matter slope is consistent with that of an NFW profile, but is not well constrained. The stellar IMF normalization is close to a Salpeter IMF at $\log{M_*} = 11.5$ and scales strongly with increasing stellar mass. No dependence of the IMF on redshift or stellar mass density is detected. The anti-correlation between dark matter mass and stellar mass density supports the idea of mergers being more frequent in more massive dark matter halos.

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arXiv2014

RingFinder: automated detection of galaxy-scale gravitational lenses in ground-based multi-filter imaging data

We present RingFinder, a tool for finding galaxy-scale strong gravitational lenses in multiband imaging data. By construction, the method is sensitive to configurations involving a massive foreground early-type galaxy and a faint, background, blue source. RingFinder detects the presence of blue residuals embedded in an otherwise smooth red light distribution by difference imaging in two bands. The method is automated for efficient application to current and future surveys, having originally been designed for the 150-deg2 Canada France Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey (CFHTLS). We describe each of the steps of RingFinder. We then carry out extensive simulations to assess completeness and purity. For sources with magnification mu>4, RingFinder reaches 42% (resp. 25%) completeness and 29% (resp. 86%) purity before (resp. after) visual inspection. The completeness of RingFinder is substantially improved in the particular range of Einstein radii 0.8 < REin < 2. and lensed images brighter than g = 22.5, where it can be as high as 70%. RingFinder does not introduce any significant bias in the source or deflector population. We conclude by presenting the final catalog of RingFinder CFHTLS galaxy-scale strong lens candidates. Additional information obtained with Hubble Space Telescope and Keck Adaptive Optics high resolution imaging, and with Keck and Very Large Telescope spectroscopy, is used to assess the validity of our classification, and measure the redshift of the foreground and the background objects. From an initial sample of 640,000 early type galaxies, RingFinder returns 2500 candidates, which we further reduce by visual inspection to 330 candidates. We confirm 33 new gravitational lenses from the main sample of candidates, plus an additional 16 systems taken from earlier versions of RingFinder. First applications are presented in the SL2S galaxy-scale Lens Sample paper series.

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arXiv2012

The SL2S Galaxy-scale Gravitational Lens Sample. I. The alignment of mass and light in massive early-type galaxies at z=0.2-0.9

We study the relative alignment of mass and light in a sample of 16 massive early-type galaxies at z=0.2-0.9 that act as strong gravitational lenses. The sample was identified from deep multi-band images obtained as part of the Canada France Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey as part of the Strong Lensing Legacy Survey (SL2S). Higher resolution follow-up imaging is available for a subset of 10 systems. We construct gravitational lens models and infer total enclosed mass, elongation, and position angle of the mass distribution. By comparison with the observed distribution of light we infer that there is a substantial amount of external shear with mean value $<γ_{\rm ext}>= 0.12 \pm 0.05$, arising most likely from the environment of the SL2S lenses. In a companion paper, we combine these measurements with follow-up Keck spectroscopy to study the evolution of the stellar and dark matter content of early-type galaxies as a function of cosmic time.

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arXiv2012

Evidence for dark matter contraction and a Salpeter IMF in a massive early-type galaxy

Stars and dark matter account for most of the mass of early-type galaxies, but uncertainties in the stellar population and the dark matter profile make it challenging to distinguish between the two components. Nevertheless, precise observations of stellar and dark matter are extremely valuable for testing the many models of structure formation and evolution. We present a measurement of the stellar mass and inner slope of the dark matter halo of a massive early-type galaxy at $z=0.222$. The galaxy is the foreground deflector of the double Einstein ring gravitational lens system SDSSJ0946+1006, also known as the "Jackpot". By combining the tools of lensing and dynamics, we first constrain the mean slope of the total mass density profile ($ρ_{\rm{tot}}\propto r^{-γ'}$) within the radius of the outer ring to be $γ' = 1.98\pm0.02\pm0.01$. Then we obtain a bulge-halo decomposition, assuming a power-law form for the dark matter halo. Our analysis yields $γ_{\rm{DM}} = 1.7\pm0.2$ for the inner slope of the dark matter profile, in agreement with theoretical findings on the distribution of dark matter in ellipticals, and a stellar mass from lensing and dynamics $M_*^{\rm{LD}} = 5.5_{-1.3}^{+0.4}\times10^{11}M_\Sun$. By comparing this measurement with stellar masses inferred from stellar population synthesis fitting we find that a Salpeter IMF provides a good description of the stellar population of the lens while the probability of the IMF being heavier than Chabrier is 95%. Our data suggest that growth by accretion of small systems from a compact red nugget is a plausible formation scenario for this object.

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arXiv2012

The CFHTLS-Strong Lensing Legacy Survey (SL2S): Investigating the group-scale lenses with the SARCS sample

We present the Strong Lensing Legacy Survey - ARCS (SARCS) sample compiled from the final T0006 data release of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey (CFHTLS) covering a total non-overlapping area of 159 sq.deg. We adopt a semi-automatic method to find gravitational arcs in the survey that makes use of an arc-finding algorithm. The candidate list is pruned by visual inspection and ranking to form the SARCS sample. This list also includes some serendipitously discovered lens candidates. The SARCS sample consists of 127 lens candidates which span arc radii~2"-18" within the unmasked area of ~ 150 sq. deg. Within the sample, 54 systems are promising lenses amongst which, we find 12 giant arcs and 2 radial arc candidates. From our sample, we detect a systematic alignment of giant arcs with the ellipticity of the baryonic component of the lens in concordance with previous studies. The lens redshift distribution corresponding to both the giant arcs and all arcs, estimated from photometric catalogs, peaks at z~0.6. Owing to the large area and depth of the CFHTLS, we find the largest lens sample probing group-scales for the first time. We compare the observed image separation distribution (ISD) of our arcs with theoretical models. A two-component density profile for the lenses which accounts for both the central galaxy and dark matter component is required by the data to explain the observed ISD. Unfortunately, current levels of uncertainties and degeneracies accommodate models both with and without adiabatic contraction. We also show the effects of changing parameters of the model that predict the ISD and that a larger lens sample might constrain relations such as the concentration-mass relation, mass-luminosity relation and slope of the luminosity function. (abridged)

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arXiv2011

The Sloan Lens ACS Survey. XI. Beyond Hubble resolution: size, luminosity and stellar mass of compact lensed galaxies at intermediate redshift

We exploit the strong lensing effect to explore the properties of intrinsically faint and compact galaxies at intermediate redshift, at the highest possible resolution at optical wavelengths. Our sample consists of 46 strongly-lensed emission line galaxies discovered by the Sloan Lens ACS (SLACS) Survey. The galaxies have been imaged at high resolution with HST in three bands (V_HST, I_814 and H_160), allowing us to infer their size, luminosity, and stellar mass using stellar population synthesis models. Lens modeling is performed using a new fast and robust code, klens, which we test extensively on real and synthetic non-lensed galaxies, and also on simulated galaxies multiply-imaged by SLACS- like galaxy-scale lenses. Our tests show that our measurements of galaxy size, flux, and Sersic index are robust and accurate, even for objects intrinsically smaller than the HST point spread function. The median magnification is 8.8, with a long tail that extends to magnifications above 40. Modeling the SLACS sources reveals a population of galaxies with colors and Sersic indices (median n ~ 1) consistent with the objects detected in the field with HST in the GEMS survey, but that are (typically) ~ 2 magnitudes fainter and ~ 5 times smaller in apparent size. The closest analog are ultracompact emission line galaxies identified by HST grism surveys. The lowest mass galaxies in our sample are comparable to the brightest Milky Way satellites in stellar mass (10^7 solar masses) and have well-determined half light radii of 0."05 (~0.3 kpc).

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arXiv2010

Strong Lensing as a Probe of the Mass Distribution Beyond the Einstein Radius. Mass & Light in SL2S J08544-0121, a Galaxy Group at z=0.35

Precise modelling of strong lensing systems can be affected by external mass distributions, e.g. the group or cluster within which the lens is embedded. In this article, we propose to turn this limitation to our advantage and to use precise strong lensing modelling to probe external mass distributions surrounding the lens. We consider SL2S J08544-0121, a galaxy group at z=0.35 that contains a strong lensing system. A simple elliptical isothermal potential cannot reproduce satisfactorily the strong lensing constraints. We include an external mass perturbation corresponding to the group within which the lens is embedded. The lensing properties of this perturbation are parametrised by its total mass M and a smoothing scale s that quantifies the characteristic scale over which M is distributed. For a range of these parameters, we are able to reproduce accurately the observations. This suggests that light is a good tracer of mass. Interestingly, this also shows that a localised strong lensing analysis (on scales of ~10") allows us to constrain global properties of the group as a whole (on scales of ~100). Indeed, we constrain the group mass-to-light ratio to be M/L=98+-27 (i band, solar units, not corrected for evolution) and s=20" +- 9 (2sigma confidence level). We demonstrate that these strong lensing only constraints are due to the perturbed strong lensing configuration, where the main arc is located at ~5" from the galaxy, whereas its counter-image is found at ~8". To test independently our resulting strong lensing model, we pursue an independent weak lensing analysis of the group and find a mass-to-light ratio in the range 66-146 (1sigma confidence level).

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