A new parameter space study of cosmological microlensing

Abstract

Cosmological gravitational microlensing is a useful technique for understanding the structure of the inner parts of a quasar, especially the accretion disc and the central supermassive black hole. So far, most of the cosmological microlensing studies have focused on single objects from ~90 currently known lensed quasars. However, present and planned all-sky surveys are expected to discover thousands of new lensed systems. Using a graphics processing unit (GPU) accelerated ray-shooting code, we have generated 2550 magnification maps uniformly across the convergence (κ) and shear (γ) parameter space of interest to microlensing. We examine the effect of random realizations of the microlens positions on map properties such as the magnification probability distribution (MPD). It is shown that for most of the parameter space a single map is representative of an average behaviour. All of the simulations have been carried out on the GPU Supercomputer for Theoretical Astrophysics Research. © 2013 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.