Gravitational lensing properties of an isothermal universal halo profile

Abstract

N-body simulations predict that dark matter halos with different mass scales are described by a universal model, the Navarro-Frenk-White (NFW) density profiles. As a consequence of baryonic cooling effects, these halos will become more concentrated, and similar to an isothermal sphere over a large range in radii (∼ 300 h-1 kpc). The singular isothermal sphere (SIS) model however has to be truncated artificially at large radii since it extends to infinity. We model a massive galaxy halo as a combination of an isothermal sphere and an NFW density profile. We give an approximation for the mass concentration at different baryon fractions and present exact expressions for the weak lensing shear and flexion for such a halo. We compare the lensing properties with the SIS and NFW profiles. We find that the combined profile can generate higher order lensing signals at small radii and is more efficient in generating strong lensing events. In order to distinguish such a halo profile from the SIS or NFW profiles, one needs to combine strong and weak lensing constraints for small and large radii. © 2013 National Astronomical Observatories of Chinese Academy of Sciences and IOP Publishing Ltd.