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# Constraining the Cosmological Parameters using Strong Lensing

## 1 Introduction

A new “standard cosmological model” has arisen in the last few years, favoring a flat Universe with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m0.3`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda 0.7`$. This is mainly based on the results of two experiments which give roughly orthogonal constraints in the $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_m,\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda )`$ plane (see Fig. 1 for a recent update). The first one is obtained by considering type Ia supernovae (SNIa) as standard candles. The detection of a sample of high redshift SNIa (up to $`z`$ 1) by two groups favours a non-vanishing cosmological constant (Perlmutter et al., 1998; Riess et al., 1998), large enough to produce an accelerating expansion. However, evidence for a non-zero cosmological constant is still controversial, since supernovae might evolve with redshift and/or may be dimmed by intergalactic dust (Aguirre, 1999). The fundamental assumption of a homogeneous Universe and its implication for a non-zero cosmological constant are also discussed (Célérier, 2000; Kolatt & Lahav, 2001). The second constraint is derived from the location of features in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy spectrum, particularly the first Doppler peak. The most recent results obtained with the Boomerang and MAXIMA experiments favor a flat Universe (Balbi et al., 2000; Melchiorri et al., 2000). However, there still remains a degeneracy in the combination of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda `$ because CMB experiments are primarily sensitive to the total curvature of the Universe. Even with the accuracy of the future MAP and Planck missions, the constraint issued from the CMB alone will be degenerate.

The combination of these two sets of constraints has led to the currently favored model of low matter density and a non-zero cosmological constant, preserving a flat geometry (e.g. White, 1998; Efstathiou et al., 1999; Freedman, 2000; Sahni & Starobinsky, 2000; Jaffe et al., 2001). Although these recent results are quite spectacular, there still remain many sources of uncertainties with both methods. Thus any other independent test to constrain the large scale geometry of the Universe is important to investigate. Gravitational lensing, an effect involving large distance scales, has been considered as a very promising tool for such determinations. Indeed, the statistics of gravitational lenses depend on the cosmological parameters via angular size distances and the comoving spherical volume (e.g. Turner et al., 1984; Turner, 1990; Kochanek, 1996; Falco et al., 1998). This technique has provided an upper limit on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda `$ using different surveys of galaxy lens systems: multiple quasar statistics (Kochanek, 1996; Chiba & Yoshii, 1999), lensed radio sources (Cooray, 1999), lensed galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field (Cooray et al., 1999). Although most authors favor a lambda-dominated flat Universe, there remain some uncertainties in the mass distribution of the galaxy lenses and on the luminosity function of the sources. Evolutionary effects may also play a role in these statistics.

Another application of gravitational lensing to constrain the cosmological parameters is to use the statistics of the “cosmic” shear variance. Van Waerbeke et al. (1999) showed that it is related to the power spectrum of the large scale mass fluctuations, and then to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$. The first results of deep wide field imaging surveys favor $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ in the range \[0.2–0.5\] (Maoli et al., 2001; Van Waerbeke et al., 2001; Bacon et al., 2000; Wittman et al., 2000). Imaging surveys with the next generation of panoramic CCD cameras will reinforce this very promising technique. In the case of weak lensing by clusters of galaxies, Lombardi & Bertin (1999) and Gautret et al. (2000) suggested methods to constrain the geometry of the Universe. These methods need however to recover the mass distribution and/or to know acurately the redshift of a huge number of distant galaxies, making this method not practical in the near future.

In this paper, we focus on a measurement technique of $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_m,\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda )`$ using gravitational lensing as a purely geometrical test of the curvature of the Universe, since the lens equation depends on the ratio of angular size distances which is sensitive to the cosmological parameters. In the most favorable case, a massive cluster of galaxies can lens several background galaxies, splitting the images into several families of multiple images. The existence of one family of multiple images, at known redshift, allows to calibrate the total cluster mass in an absolute way. In the case of several sets of multiple images with known redshifts, it is possible in principle to constrain the geometry of the Universe. This method was pointed out by Blandford & Narayan (1992), and earlier suggested by Paczynski & Gorski (1981), but the uncertainties in any lens studies were considered too large compared to the small variations induced by the cosmological parameters. More recently, Link & Pierce (1998) (hereafter LP98) re-analysed the question in the light of the typical accuracy reached with HST images of clusters of galaxies. Following their method, which inspired our work, we try to quantify in this paper what can be reasonably obtained on $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_m,\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda )`$ from accurate lens modeling of realistic cluster-lenses.

The paper is organized as follows. In Sect. 2 we summarize the main lensing equations and we introduce the relevant angular size distance ratio which contains the dependence on the cosmological parameters. The variation of this ratio is then compared to that of other variables (lens potential parameters and redshifts) to derive the expected uncertainties on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda `$. In Sect. 3 we present the method in detail and the results from simulations of various types of families of images and of different types of lens potentials. Some conclusions and prospects for the application to real data are discussed in Sect. 4. Throughout this paper we assume $`H_0=65`$ km s-1 Mpc-1 (note however that the proposed method and results are independent of $`H_0`$).

## 2 Influence of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda `$ on image formation

### 2.1 Cosmology dependent lensing relations

We first define the basic mathematical framework, following the formalism presented in Schneider et al. (1992). We consider a lens at a redshift $`z_\mathrm{L}`$ with a two-dimensional projected mass distribution $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(\theta )`$ and a projected gravitational potential $`\varphi (\theta )`$, where $`\theta `$ is a two-dimensional vector representing the angular position. A source galaxy with redshift $`z_\mathrm{S}`$ is located at position $`\theta _S`$ in the absence of a lens, and its image is at position $`\theta _I`$. In the lens equation

$$\{\begin{array}{c}\theta _S=\theta _I\phi (\theta _I)\hfill \\ \phi (\theta )=\frac{2}{c^2}\frac{D_{\mathrm{LS}}}{D_{\mathrm{OL}}D_{\mathrm{OS}}}\varphi (\theta ),\hfill \end{array}$$
(1)
$`D_{\mathrm{OL}}`$, $`D_{\mathrm{LS}}`$ and $`D_{\mathrm{OS}}`$ are respectively the angular diameter distances from the Observer to the Lens, from the Lens to the Source and from the Observer to the Source (Peebles, 1993). $`\phi `$ is the reduced gravitational potential which satisfies $`^2\phi =2\mathrm{\Sigma }/\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{crit}}`$ with the critical density

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{crit}}=\frac{c^2}{4\pi G}\frac{D_{\mathrm{OS}}}{D_{\mathrm{LS}}D_{\mathrm{OL}}}.$$
(2)
In these equations the dependence on the cosmological parameters appears only through the angular diameter distances ratios $`F={\displaystyle \frac{D_{\mathrm{OL}}D_{\mathrm{LS}}}{D_{\mathrm{OS}}}}`$ and $`E={\displaystyle \frac{D_{\mathrm{LS}}}{D_{\mathrm{OS}}}}`$ ($`E`$ as “efficiency”) for a fixed cluster redshift. They correspond to a scaling of the lens equation, reflecting the geometrical properties of the Universe.

In the general case, we can scale the potential gradient as:

$$\varphi (\theta _I)=\sigma _0^2D_{\mathrm{OL}}f(\theta _I,\theta _C,\alpha ,\mathrm{})$$
(3)
where $`\sigma _0`$ is the central velocity dispersion and $`f`$ a dimensionless function that describes the mass distribution of the cluster. It can be represented by fiducial parameters such as a core radius $`\theta _C`$ or a mass profile gradient $`\alpha `$. The lens equation reads

$`\theta _S`$ $`=`$ $`\theta _I{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _0^2}{c^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{D_{\mathrm{LS}}}{D_{\mathrm{OS}}}}f(\theta _I,\theta _C,\alpha ,\mathrm{})`$
$`=`$ $`\theta _I{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _0^2}{c^2}}f(\theta _I,\theta _C,\alpha ,\mathrm{})\times E(\mathrm{\Omega }_m,\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda ,z_\mathrm{L},z_\mathrm{S})`$
We will focus on the $`E`$-term which entirely contains the dependence on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda `$ and which is independent of $`H_0`$.

### 2.2 The E-term

For a given lens plane $`z_\mathrm{L}`$, the ratio $`E`$ increases rapidly as the source redshift increases, and then flattens at $`z_\mathrm{S}1.5`$. There are also small but significant changes with the cosmological parameters (Fig. 2). The dependence of $`E`$ with respect to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ is weak, whereas the variation with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda `$ is larger.

We now consider fixed redshifts for the lens and sources. Assuming a fixed world model, a single family of multiple images can in principle constrain the total cluster mass as well as the shape of the potential, removing the unknown position of the source $`\theta _S`$ using Eq.(2.1). In practice, good constraints on the shape of the potential $`f`$ are obtained with triple, quadruple or quintuple image systems. However the absolute normalization $`\sigma _0`$ of the mass is degenerate with the E-term, that is with respect to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda `$.

### 2.3 Ratio of E-terms for 2 sets of source redshifts

To break this degeneracy a second family of multiple images is needed. To get rid of the strong dependence on $`\sigma _0`$, it is useful to consider the ratio of the positions:

$$\frac{\theta _{I_1^1}\theta _{I_2^1}}{\theta _{I_1^2}\theta _{I_2^2}}=\frac{E(z_{S1})f(\theta _{I_1^1},\mathrm{})f(\theta _{I_2^1},\mathrm{})}{E(z_{S2})f(\theta _{I_1^2},\mathrm{})f(\theta _{I_2^2},\mathrm{})}$$
(5)
(here and hereafter, the superscript refers to a family and the subscript to a particular image within a family). This ratio is plotted in Fig. 1, highlighting the influence of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda `$ through the ratio $`e(z_{S1},z_{S2})=E(z_{S1})/E(z_{S2})`$.

Note that the discrepancy between the different cosmological parameters is not very large, less than 3% between the Einstein-de Sitter model (EdS) and a flat, low matter density one. Moreover, a characteristic degeneracy appears in the $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_m,\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda )`$ plane, which is roughly orthogonal to the one given by the detection of high redshift supernovae, and quite different from the CMB constraints. A similar degeneracy was also found in the analog weak lensing analyses, (Lombardi & Bertin, 1999) or by Gautret et al. (2000).

Another approach to quantify the dependence of a given lens configuration on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda `$ is to fix the lens redshift and to search for two source redshifts $`z_{S1}`$ and $`z_{S2}`$ which give the largest variation of the $`E`$-term when scanning the $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_m,\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda )`$ plane. For illustration we arbitrarily choose two sets of cosmological parameters, for which the relative variation of $`E`$ is large: CP1 $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3,\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda =0)`$ and CP2 ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=1,\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda =0`$, i.e. the EdS model). Varying $`z_{S1}`$ and $`z_{S2}`$, the function $`\epsilon (z_{S1},z_{S2})=e_{CP2}(z_{S1},z_{S2})/e_{CP1}(z_{S1},z_{S2})1`$ represents the percentage of discrepancy between $`CP1`$ and $`CP2`$ for $`z_{S1}z_{S2}(z_\mathrm{L})`$ (Fig. 3).

For a given high-redshift $`z_{S2}`$ source the best lowest source redshift is $`z_{S1}z_\mathrm{L}`$, and for a given $`z_{S1}`$ the best $`z_{S2}`$ is the highest redshift, the difference between cosmological models increasing with $`z_{S2}`$. In all cases, this relative difference is of the order of a few %, meaning that the lens mass distribution must be known to the same degree of accuracy to get further constraints on the cosmological parameters. Hence, for 2 systems of images, the best configuration is one background source close to the lens, in the rising part of $`E(z_\mathrm{S})`$ and another one at high redshift, to take into account the asymptotic value of the ratio. Note however that for a source redshift close to the lens, the $`E`$-term becomes very small. Also, the location of the images is very close to the lens center which makes the detection of multiple images quite improbable, as small caustic sizes imply small cross sections.

### 2.4 Relative influence of the lens parameters

#### 2.4.1 Physical assumptions

In order to quantify the expected uncertainties on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda `$, it is possible to analytically estimate the influence of the different lens models parameters. We use a model of the potential derived from the mass density described by Hjorth & Kneib (2001), hereafter HK. It is based on a physical scenario of violent relaxation in galaxies, also valid in clusters of galaxies. The mass density is characterized by a core radius $`a`$ and a cut-off radius $`s`$:

$$\rho (r)=\frac{\rho _0}{\left(1+\frac{r^2}{a^2}\right)\left(1+\frac{r^2}{s^2}\right)}.$$
(6)
Then the projected mass density $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(\theta )`$ is represented by:

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }(\theta )=\mathrm{\Sigma }_0\frac{\theta _a\theta _s}{\theta _s\theta _a}\left(\frac{1}{\sqrt{\theta ^2+\theta _a^2}}\frac{1}{\sqrt{\theta ^2+\theta _s^2}}\right),$$
(7)
where $`\theta `$ is the angular coordinate, $`\theta _a=a/D_{\mathrm{OL}}`$ and $`\theta _s=s/D_{\mathrm{OL}}`$. $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_0`$ is a normalization factor, related to the cluster parameters:

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_0=\pi \rho _0D_{\mathrm{OL}}\frac{\theta _a\theta _s}{\theta _s+\theta _a}.$$
(8)
Finally,the mass inside the projected angular radius $`\theta `$ is:

$`M(\theta )`$ $`=`$ $`2\pi \mathrm{\Sigma }_0D_{\mathrm{OL}}^2{\displaystyle \frac{\theta _a\theta _s}{\theta _s\theta _a}}\times `$ (9)
$`\left[\sqrt{\theta ^2+\theta _a^2}\sqrt{\theta ^2+\theta _s^2}+\theta _s\theta _a\right].`$
The velocity dispersion $`\sigma (\theta )`$ is related to the mass density and the gravitational potential via the Jeans equation. Assuming an isotropic velocity dispersion and retaining terms up to first order in $`\theta _a/\theta _s`$, we get the relation between the central velocity dispersion $`\sigma _0=\sigma (0)`$ and $`\rho _0`$:

$$\sigma _0^2=\frac{\pi ^3Ga^2}{2}\rho _0s.$$
(10)
Finally we compute the expression of the deviation angle between the positions of the source and of the image due to the lens: $`D_{\theta _I}=\theta _I\theta _S`$, neglecting second order terms in $`\theta _a/\theta _s`$ (we suppose here $`sa`$):

$$D_{\theta _I}=\frac{16}{\pi }\frac{\sigma _0^2}{c^2}E\frac{1}{\theta _I}\left[\sqrt{\theta ^2+\theta _a^2}\sqrt{\theta ^2+\theta _s^2}+\theta _s\theta _a\right].$$
(11)
#### 2.4.2 The single multiple-image configuration

The central velocity dispersion (or equivalently the mass normalization of the cluster core) is obviously the predominant factor in any lens configuration. With a single family of images we can only constrain the combination $`\sigma _0^2E`$ and cannot disentangle the influence of the cosmological parameters and the absolute normalization of the mass (Fig. 4). If we were able to measure the total mass within the Einstein radius independently from lensing techniques and with an accuracy better than a few %, we could in principle put some constraints on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda `$. Observationally, there are 2 situations where it is likely that we could disentangle the effect of cosmology and absolute mass:
1) in the case of a cluster-lens with extremely good X-ray data, particularly in estimating the temperature distribution of the gas (under the assumption of hydrostatic equilibrium),
2) in the case of a multiple system around a single galaxy, for which one is able to measure accurately the stellar velocity dispersion of the lensing galaxy (Tonry & Franx, 1999).
However in both cases this represents some observational challenge and requires the most powerful instruments to achieve this goal.

Although the error budget in the image positions is dominated by the error on the total cluster mass (or equivalently the velocity dispersion), we can determine the relative influence of the other parameters to infer the importance of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda `$ in the image formation. The relative error on the deviation angle $`D_{\theta _I}`$ depends on $`\sigma _0`$, $`\theta _a`$, $`\theta _s`$ and $`\theta _I`$ for the gravitational potential, and $`z_\mathrm{L}`$, $`z_\mathrm{S}`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda `$ for the $`E`$-term (Eq.(11)). Therefore we can write:

$$\frac{\mathrm{d}D_{\theta _I}}{D_{\theta _I}}=\frac{\mathrm{d}E}{E}+\alpha _{\sigma _0}\frac{\mathrm{d}\sigma _0}{\sigma _0}+\alpha _{\theta _a}\frac{\mathrm{d}\theta _a}{\theta _a}+\alpha _{\theta _s}\frac{\mathrm{d}\theta _s}{\theta _s}+\alpha _{\theta _I}\frac{\mathrm{d}\theta _I}{\theta _I},$$
(12)
with

$$\frac{\mathrm{d}E}{E}(z_\mathrm{S})=\alpha _{\mathrm{\Omega }_m}\frac{\mathrm{d}\mathrm{\Omega }_m}{\mathrm{\Omega }_m}+\alpha _{\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda }\frac{\mathrm{d}\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda }{\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda }+\alpha _{z_\mathrm{L}}\frac{\mathrm{d}z_\mathrm{L}}{z_\mathrm{L}}+\alpha _{z_\mathrm{S}}\frac{\mathrm{d}z_\mathrm{S}}{z_\mathrm{S}}.$$
(13)
$`\alpha _{\theta _a}`$, $`\alpha _{\theta _s}`$ and $`\alpha _{\theta _I}`$ can be computed analytically while $`\alpha _{\sigma _0}=2`$ is the largest factor. Since the angular diameter distances do not have an analytic expression if $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda `$ is non-zero, the coefficients $`\alpha _{\mathrm{\Omega }_m}`$, $`\alpha _{\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda }`$, $`\alpha _{z_\mathrm{L}}`$ and $`\alpha _{z_\mathrm{S}}`$ must be computed numerically. In practise, they are computed for a given set of parameters $`(z_\mathrm{L},\mathrm{\Omega }_m,\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda )`$ as their variation with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda `$ is of higher order. For a reasonable set of lens parameters, the $`\alpha `$-coefficients are of the same order of magnitude, except that $`\alpha _{z_\mathrm{S}}`$ and $`\alpha _{z_\mathrm{L}}`$ can dominate the error budget if the source redshift is close to the lens (an unlikely case). On the contrary, $`\alpha _{\mathrm{\Omega }_m}`$ and $`\alpha _{\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda }`$ are of second order, and $`\alpha _{\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda }`$ is somewhat larger than $`\alpha _{\mathrm{\Omega }_m}`$. This reflects again the fact that $`E`$-term is more sensitive to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda `$ than to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$.

To quantify the relative influence of all the parameters in the case of a single family of images, we computed explicitely $`\mathrm{d}D_{\theta _I}/D_{\theta _I}`$ in two cases, for a cluster-lens and for a galaxy-lens.

1) For a cluster of galaxies, we take the following parameters: $`z_\mathrm{L}=0.3`$, $`z_\mathrm{S}=4`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda =0.7`$, $`\theta _s/\theta _a=10`$ and $`\theta _I/\theta _a=4`$. We thus find from Eq.(11):

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}D_{\theta _I}}{D_{\theta _I}}}`$ $`=`$ $`2{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}\sigma _0}{\sigma _0}}0.31{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}\theta _I}{\theta _I}}0.21{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}\theta _a}{\theta _a}}+0.51{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}\theta _s}{\theta _s}}`$
$``$ $`0.17{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}z_\mathrm{L}}{z_\mathrm{L}}}+0.062{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}z_\mathrm{S}}{z_\mathrm{S}}}+0.012{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}\mathrm{\Omega }_m}{\mathrm{\Omega }_m}}+0.14{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda }{\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda }}`$
Let us assume a perfectly known mass profile (i.e. d$`\theta _a=\mathrm{d}\theta _s=0.`$). Neglecting the influence of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$, we ask what precision would be required on $`\sigma _0`$ to derive an error of 50% on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda `$. The accuracy of the position of the center of the images is calculated using the first moment of the flux $`f(\theta )`$ on a given image: $`\theta _I=\theta f(\theta )d\theta ^2/f(\theta )d\theta ^2`$ which yields an error $`\mathrm{d}\theta _I`$ of a fraction of the spatial resolution. HST observations are then required to reach $`\mathrm{d}\theta _I=0.1\mathrm{}`$ (LP98) or better. To reduce the uncertainty on the redshift measurements, we assume spectroscopic determinations, so that $`dz0.001`$. Finally we have to compute the relative errors on $`D_{\theta _I}=\theta _I\theta _S`$, so the position of the source is in principle required. But as we are in the strong lensing regime, we assume that $`\theta _S\theta _I`$, so that both quantities $`D_{\theta _I}\theta _I`$ and $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}D_{\theta _I}}{D_{\theta _I}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}\theta _I}{\theta _I}}`$ are directly related to observable ones. Taking these values into account, we need to know $`\sigma _0`$ with 3.6% accuracy to get the expected constraint on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda `$. Such an accuracy is out of reach with observations of clusters of galaxies.

2) For a single galaxy, we consider typically: $`z_\mathrm{L}=0.3`$, $`z_\mathrm{S}=4`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda =0.7`$, $`\theta _s/\theta _a=200`$ and $`\theta _I/\theta _a=200`$ (ratios taken from the modelisation of the lens HST 14176+5226 by Hjorth & Kneib (2001)), leading to:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}D_{\theta _I}}{D_{\theta _I}}}`$ $`=`$ $`2{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}\sigma _0}{\sigma _0}}0.72{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}\theta _I}{\theta _I}}0.0066{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}\theta _a}{\theta _a}}+0.73{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}\theta _s}{\theta _s}}`$
$``$ $`0.17{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}z_\mathrm{L}}{z_\mathrm{L}}}+0.062{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}z_\mathrm{S}}{z_\mathrm{S}}}+0.012{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}\mathrm{\Omega }_m}{\mathrm{\Omega }_m}}+0.14{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda }{\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda }}`$
Taking the same values for the observational errors and considering a perfectly known mass profile, we require an accuracy of 6.4% on $`\sigma _0`$ to derive a 50% error on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda `$. For a typical galaxy, this represents about 15 km s-1. Warren et al. (1998) measured the velocity dispersion in the deflector of the Einstein ring 0047–2808 with an error of 30 km s-1. A better accuracy could be obtained by looking at particular strong absorption features with 10m class telescope observations. This could be sufficient to confirm an accelerating Universe.

#### 2.4.3 Configuration with 2 multiple-image systems

With a second system of multiple images another region of the $`E(z_\mathrm{S})`$ curve is probed while the cluster parameters are the same. In that case, the relevant quantity becomes the ratio of the deviation angles for 2 images $`\theta _{I^1}`$ and $`\theta _{I^2}`$ belonging to 2 different families at redshifts $`z_{S1}`$ and $`z_{S2}`$. We define $`R_{\theta _{I^1},\theta _{I^2}}={\displaystyle \frac{D_{\theta _{I^2}}}{D_{\theta _{I^1}}}}`$. This function has the advantage that it does not depend on $`\sigma _0`$ anymore. Following our previous definitions, we can write

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}R_{\theta _{I^1},\theta _{I^2}}}{R_{\theta _{I^1},\theta _{I^2}}}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}E(z_{S2})}{E(z_{S2})}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}E(z_{S1})}{E(z_{S1})}}`$ (16)
$`+`$ $`\alpha _{\theta _I}\left(\theta _{I^2}\right){\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}\theta _{I^2}}{\theta _{I^2}}}\alpha _{\theta _I}\left(\theta _{I^1}\right){\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}\theta _{I^1}}{\theta _{I^1}}}`$
$`+`$ $`\left(\alpha _{\theta _a}\left(\theta _{I^2}\right)\alpha _{\theta _a}\left(\theta _{I^1}\right)\right){\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}\theta _a}{\theta _a}}`$
$`+`$ $`\left(\alpha _{\theta _s}\left(\theta _{I^2}\right)\alpha _{\theta _s}\left(\theta _{I^1}\right)\right){\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}\theta _s}{\theta _s}}`$
Numerically, we chose a typical configuration to compute $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}R_{\theta _{I^1},\theta _{I^2}}}{R_{\theta _{I^1},\theta _{I^2}}}}`$: $`\theta _s/\theta _a=10`$, $`\theta _{I^2}/\theta _a=4`$, $`\theta _{I^2}/\theta _{I^1}=2`$, $`z_\mathrm{L}=0.3`$, $`z_{S1}=0.6`$, $`z_{S2}=5`$, assuming $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda =0.7`$. This gives the following error budget:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}R_{\theta _{I^1},\theta _{I^2}}}{R_{\theta _{I^1},\theta _{I^2}}}}`$ $`=`$ $`0.92{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}z_L}{z_L}}0.99{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}z_{S1}}{z_{S1}}}+0.062{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}z_{S2}}{z_{S2}}}`$ (17)
$``$ $`0.018{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}\theta _{I^1}}{\theta _{I^1}}}0.31{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}\theta _{I^2}}{\theta _{I^2}}}+0.12{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}\theta _a}{\theta _a}}`$
$`+`$ $`0.21{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}\theta _s}{\theta _s}}+0.034{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}\mathrm{\Omega }_m}{\mathrm{\Omega }_m}}+0.037{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda }{\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda }}`$
The contribution of the physical lens parameters in this error budget is strongly attenuated comprared to the single family case. There is no more dependence on $`\sigma _0`$ and the dependence on the mass profile ( $`\theta _a,\theta _s`$) is reduced by about a factor of 2 compared to a single family of images. This corresponds to the variation of the potential between $`\theta _{I1}`$ and $`\theta _{I2}`$, the absolute normalization being removed. Anyhow, this can still represent the main source of error because we cannot expect to constrain $`\theta _a`$ to better than 1.5% and $`\theta _s`$ to better than 2% typically (see Sect. 3.3.3).

For the source redshifts, we have selected one of the sources at $`z_{S1}=0.6`$, which means that its $`\alpha `$-coefficient is quite large. The accurate value of the redshifts is thus fundamental, and a spectroscopic determination is essential ($`dz0.001`$). A photometric redshift estimate would not be satisfactory, because we cannot expect an accuracy better than 10% in most cases ($`\mathrm{d}z0.10.2`$, Bolzonella et al. (2000)). We keep $`\mathrm{d}\theta _I=0.1\mathrm{}`$. The strong lensing regime approximation leads to $`R_{\theta _{I^1},\theta _{I^2}}={\displaystyle \frac{\theta _{I^2}\theta _{S^2}}{\theta _{I^1}\theta _{S^1}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta _{I^2}}{\theta _{I^1}}}`$ and $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}R_{\theta _{I^1},\theta _{I^2}}}{R_{\theta _{I^1},\theta _{I^2}}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}\theta _{I^2}}{\theta _{I^2}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}\theta _{I^1}}{\theta _{I^1}}}`$.

We can then separate the contributions of the parameters that do not depend on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ or $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda `$ from those which depend on them and re-write Eq.(16):

$`A_{\mathrm{\Omega }_m}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}\mathrm{\Omega }_m}{\mathrm{\Omega }_m}}+A_{\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda }{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda }{\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda }}=`$ (18)
$`\sqrt{\mathrm{Err1}^2(\theta _{I^1},\theta _{I^2},\theta _a,\theta _s)+\mathrm{Err2}^2(\mathrm{\Omega }_m,\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda ,z_\mathrm{L},z_{S1},z_{S2})}`$
$`A_{\mathrm{\Omega }_m}`$ and $`A_{\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda }`$ depend on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m,\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda ,z_\mathrm{L},z_{S1},z_{S2}`$ while Err12 and Err22 are the quadratic sums of the errors, with a separation between the geometrical parameters and those depending on the cosmology. For each set of cosmological parameters we then compute all these coefficients numerically. In addition, we also need a calculation of the “degeneracy” $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m/\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda `$ to obtain either $`\mathrm{d}\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ or $`\mathrm{d}\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda `$. This is the slope of the degeneracy curves of the E-terms ratio plotted in Fig. 1. Indeed considering 2 points $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_m,\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda )`$ and $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_m+\mathrm{d}\mathrm{\Omega }_m,\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda +\mathrm{d}\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda )`$ on such a curve (for a given set of $`z_\mathrm{L}`$, $`z_{S1}`$, $`z_{S2}`$), we have $`e(\mathrm{\Omega }_m,\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda )=e(\mathrm{\Omega }_m+\mathrm{d}\mathrm{\Omega }_m,\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda +\mathrm{d}\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda )`$ so that we get $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m/\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda =_{\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda }e(z_{S1},z_{S2})/_{\mathrm{\Omega }_m}e(z_{S1},z_{S2})`$. The final expected errors on $`\mathrm{d}\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ and $`\mathrm{d}\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda `$ are plotted in Fig. 5 for a continuous set of world models. The method is in general far more sensitive to the matter density than to the cosmological constant, for which the error bars are larger. This apparent contradiction with the general statement that lensing is more sensitive to the cosmological constant than to the matter density is due to the fact that we analysed the ratio of two E-terms and this ratio varies more rapidly with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ when scanning the $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_m,\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda )`$ plane (Fig 1). For illustration, we quantitatively obtain the following errors for the corresponding cosmological models:

$`\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}:`$ $`\delta \mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.11\delta \mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda =0.23`$
$`\mathrm{SCDM}:`$ $`\delta \mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.17\delta \mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda =0.48`$
This analysis shows that the expected results are quite encouraging, and the constraints we could get are similar to the ones currently obtained by other methods. Note however that these typical values require both HST imaging of cluster lenses and deep spectroscopic observations for the redshift determination of multiple arcs. They may depend on the choice of the lens parameters and on the potential model chosen to describe the lens, a problem that we will now investigate.

## 3 Constraints on the cosmological parameters from strong lensing

### 3.1 Existence of multiple systems of lensed images

More and more cluster-lenses are known to show several systems of multiple images (with spectroscopic or photometric redshifts). Lens modelling is then performed with a good accuracy and allows the prediction of extra families of images and their expected redshifts. When these images are later identified and if their redshift can be measured spectroscopically, an iterative process brings the lens model to a high level of accuracy, where most of the parameters which characterise the mass profile are strongly constrained. This full process has been applied successfully in a few clusters such as A2218 (Kneib et al., 1996), A370 (Kneib et al., 1993a; Smail et al., 1996; Bézecourt et al., 1999a) or AC114 (Natarajan et al., 1998; Campusano et al., 2001).

In order to apply more systematically the method proposed here, we may ask whether the few cited cluster-lenses are representative of some generic cluster or if they correspond to very peculiar configurations. To answer this question, we simulated a typical cluster at redshift $`z=0.2`$ with the following characteristics. A main clump is described with the potential of Eq.(6), the so-called HK mass density, with $`a=50`$ kpc and $`s=500`$ kpc. These values are typical of cluster-lenses at this redshift (Smith et al., 2001). The central velocity dispersion is varied from 800 to 1400 km s-1 to allow a variation of the Einstein radius. In addition, 12 individual galaxies are added in the mass distribution, following the prescription used by Natarajan & Kneib (1996) and for a total contribution of 30% of the total mass. Their individual masses are scaled with respect to their luminosity $`L_i`$ by the Faber-Jackson relation:

$$\sigma _i=\sigma _0^G\left(\frac{L_i}{L_0}\right)^{\frac{1}{4}}$$
(19)
with $`\sigma _0^G=150`$ km s-1 (following Faber et al. (1997)), and with a cut-off radius:

$$\theta _{S_i}=\theta _{S_0}^G\left(\frac{L_i}{L_0}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}$$
(20)
providing a constant ratio $`M/L`$ (Natarajan & Kneib, 1997).

To simulate the background sources, we used the Hubble Deep Field (HDF) image acquired by the HST (Williams et al., 1996). From Fernández-Soto et al. (1999), 946 galaxies were extracted from the deepest zone of the F814W image, up to a magnitude limit $`AB(8140)=28.0`$ and over an angular area of 3.92 arcmin2. These authors also provide a catalog of photometric redshifts for all these objects. In addition, for about 10% of them, a spectroscopic redshift is available. We used this redshift distribution (spectroscopic redshift preferably used when available) as a sample of galaxy-sources to be lensed by the simulated clusters. In order to increase the statistical significance of this simulation, we generated a source catalogue with 10 times the number of galaxies extracted from the HDF image. We then distributed these sources at random angular positions over the central inner $`40\times 40`$ arcsec2. We checked that this region includes the external radial caustic line, so that no multiple images are lost. The increase in the galaxy density is then corrected for in the final results.

Table 1 presents for each value of the central velocity dispersion the number of systems found with their image multiplicity. We also determined the number of systems in which each image could be observed (with a magnitude $`AB(8140)<24.5`$, corresponding to typical HST integration time of 10 ksec). Objects with $`AB(8140)>28.0`$ could be observed due to the lens effect if the magnification exceeds a factor of 25. This very rare configuration is neglected in our simulations for simplicity. For a cluster massive enough ($`\sigma _01200`$ km s-1, corresponding to $`M_{\mathrm{tot}}2.10^{14}M_{\mathrm{}}`$ for our potential model), numerous systems of multiple images (mainly triple images) are formed and a significant fraction could be observable. Although these simulations are quite simple and cannot be used for realistic statistics of image formation, it gives us confidence that the use of multiple image families for the determination of the cosmological parameters is achievable and should be applied on a large number of rich clusters.

### 3.2 Method and algorithm for numerical simulations

In most cases, clusters of galaxies present a global ellipticity in their light distribution or in their gas distribution traced by X-ray isophotes. It is generally believed that this is related to an ellipticity in the mass distribution. This has indeed been recognized several times by the modeling of cluster lenses such as MS2137–23 (Mellier et al., 1993) or Abell 2218 (Kneib et al., 1996). So we include such an ellipticity in our modeling of cluster potentials. The basic distribution of matter we consider is again the HK one, with, in addition, a substitution of the radial distance $`r`$ by $`R`$ defined as:

$$R=\left(\frac{X\mathrm{cos}\theta +Y\mathrm{sin}\theta }{1+ϵ}\right)^2+\left(\frac{X\mathrm{sin}\theta +Y\mathrm{cos}\theta }{1ϵ}\right)^2$$
(21)
where $`X=(xx_0)`$ and $`Y=(yy_0)`$. The potential $`\varphi `$ is then characterized by 7 parameters, namely: $`x_0,y_0,ϵ,\theta `$ for the geometry of the lens and $`\sigma _0,\theta _a,\theta _s`$ for the shape of the mass profile.

Another popular density profile to be tested is the so-called Navarro, Frenk & White (NFW) density profile found in many simulations of dark matter and cluster formation (Navarro et al., 1997):

$$\rho (r)=\frac{\rho _\mathrm{c}}{(r/r_s)(1+r/r_s)^2}$$
(22)
where $`\rho _\mathrm{c}`$ is a characteristic density and $`r_s`$ a scale radius. No analytic developments have been proposed so far for the corresponding ellipsoidal profile. In a companion paper (Golse & Kneib, 2002) we propose a new “pseudo-elliptical” NFW profile and compute its lensing properties. The corresponding potential is characterized by 6 parameters: $`x_0,y_0,ϵ,\theta `$ for the geometry of the lens and $`v_c,\theta _s`$ for the shape of the mass profile. The characteristic velocity $`v_c`$ is defined by

$$v_c^2=\frac{8}{3}\mathrm{G}r_s^2\rho _c$$
(23)
as explained in Golse & Kneib (2002).

To create a simulated lens configuration we need to fix some arbitrary values of the cosmological parameters $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_m^0`$,$`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda ^0)`$ as well as the cluster lens redshift $`z_\mathrm{L}`$. The numerical code LENSTOOL developed by one of us (Kneib, 1993) can then trace back the source of a given image or determine the images of an elliptical source galaxy at a redshift $`z_\mathrm{S}`$. The initial data are several sets of multiple images at different redshifts. In all cases we do not take into account the central de-magnified images, which are generally not detected. With these observables, we can recover some parameters of the potential while we scan a grid in the $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$,$`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda )`$ plane. The likelihood of the result is obtained via a $`\chi ^2`$-minimization (with a parabolic or a Monte Carlo method), where $`\chi ^2`$ is computed in the source plane as:

$$\chi ^2=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\underset{j=1}{\overset{n^i}{}}\frac{[𝒜_j^i(\theta _{S_j^i}\theta _{SG^i})]^2}{\sigma _{I_j^i}^2}$$
(24)
The superscript $`i`$ refers to a given family of multiple images and the subscript $`j`$ to the images inside a family of $`n_i`$ images. There is a total of $`_{i=1}^nn_i=N`$ images, and $`_{i=1}^n2(n_i1)=N_C`$ constraints on the models assuming that only the position of the images are fitted. $`\theta _{S_j^i}`$ is the source position associated with the image $`\theta _{I_j^i}`$ in the lens inversion. $`\theta _{SG^i}`$ is the barycenter of all the $`\theta _{S_j^i}`$ belonging to the same family $`i`$. $`𝒜_j^i`$ is the magnification matrix for a particular image and $`\sigma _{I_j^i}`$ is the error on the position of the center of image $`\theta _{I_j^i}`$. Quantitatively we will take $`\sigma _I=0.1\mathrm{}`$ for all images, assuming that their positions are measured on HST images.

$`\chi ^2`$ computed from Eq.(24) in the source plane is mathematically equivalent to $`\chi ^2`$ computed in the image plane, written as:

$$\chi ^2=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\underset{j=1}{\overset{n^i}{}}\frac{(\theta _{I_j^i}\theta _{IG_j^i})^2}{\sigma _{I_j^i}^2},$$
(25)
where $`\theta _{IG_j^i}`$ is the image of $`\theta _{SG^i}`$ close to $`\theta _{I_j^i}`$. Indeed $`\theta _{S_j^i}\theta _{SG^i}\delta S_j^i`$ and $`\theta _{I_j^i}\theta _{IG_j^i}\delta I_j^i`$ are assumed to be small quantities compared to the variation scale of the elements of the magnification matrix $`𝒜_j^i`$. Therefore the local transformation from the image plane to the source plane is written as $`\delta I_j^i=𝒜_j^i\delta S_j^i`$. The main motivation for working in the source plane is numerical simplicity because the mapping from the source to the image plane is not a one-to-one mapping and we may not recover all the images when solving the lens equation.

If $`M_p`$ is the number of fitted parameters for the potential, there is a total of $`M=M_p+2`$ adjustable parameters (including $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda `$) and $`N_C`$ independant data points. We compute a $`\chi ^2`$-distribution for $`\nu =N_CM`$ degrees of freedom. In practice, in our simulation we try to recover only the most important parameters, like $`\sigma _0`$ (or $`\sigma _c`$), $`\theta _a`$ or $`\theta _s`$, to limit the number of degrees of freedom. This would be the case in a real application.

### 3.3 Numerical simulations in different configurations

To recover the most important parameters of the potential, we generated 3 families of multiple images (2 tangential ones and a radial one for a total number of constraints $`\nu =16`$, see Fig. 6 and Table 2) with the pseudo-elliptical NFW profile developed in Golse & Kneib (2002). We also chose regularly distributed source redshifts (Table 2). The 4 geometrical parameters of the cluster lens were left fixed during the minimization $`x_0=y_0=0`$, $`\theta =0\mathrm{°}`$ and $`ϵ=0.1`$), while the 2 parameters of the potential ($`v_c`$ and $`\theta _s`$) were allowed to vary. The initial values for these parameters, used to create the set of images, correspond to reasonable values found in cluster lenses: $`\theta _s=31.3\mathrm{}`$ (i.e. 150 kpc) and $`v_c=2000`$ km s-1. This last value corresponds to a “classical” central velocity dispersion $`\sigma _0=1230`$ km s-1 for a HK model (see Sect. 3.3.2). $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_m^0,\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda ^0)`$ were fixed to the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM values $`(0.3,0.7)`$.

#### 3.3.1 Simple cluster potential

In this case, the number of degrees of freedom is $`\nu =164=12`$ as 2 cluster parameters are fitted. The confidence levels of the minimization are plotted in Fig. 7. The trajectory of the minimum includes the initial point $`(0.3,0.7)`$ in the $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_m,\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda )`$ plane with $`\chi _{\mathrm{min}}^2=0`$. The degeneracy in the cosmological parameters is found as expected in Fig. 1. Tighter constraints can be deduced on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ than on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda `$. We also recover the cluster parameters quite satisfactorily with: $`v_c=2000_{90}^{+90}`$ km s-1 (Fig. 8) and $`\theta _a=31.3\mathrm{}_{1.3}^{+1.2}`$. Note that these errors represent only the variations of the fitted parameters when we scan the $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_m,\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda )`$ plane during the optimisation process.

This preliminary step corresponds to the “ideal” case where we recover the same type of potential we used to generate the images. Moreover, the morphology of the cluster is regular without substructure, and we included one radial system among the families of multiple images. These images are known to probe the cluster core efficiently. Finally, the redshift distribution of the sources is wide and the selected redshifts are well separated, for an optimal sampling of the E-term. One could ask whether any such lens configuration has already been detected among the known cluster lenses. It seems that the case of MS2137.3–2353 ($`z_\mathrm{L}=0.31`$) is quite close to this type of configuration (Mellier et al., 1993) with at least 3 families of multiple images, including a radial one. Uunfortunately, no spectroscopic redshift has been determined for any of the images so far.

#### 3.3.2 Changing the shape of the mass profile

To test the sensitivity of the method to the chosen fiducial mass profile, we tried to recover the lens with another potential, namely an elliptical HK profile, keeping the same simulated lens. $`\sigma _0`$, $`\theta _a`$ and $`\theta _s`$ were left free for the optimization. We first optimized the geometrical parameters for an arbitrary choice of cosmological parameters. The best values found are: $`x_0=0.059\mathrm{}`$, $`y_0=0.063\mathrm{}`$, $`\theta =0.063\mathrm{°}`$, and $`ϵ=0.280`$. These values are close to the generating ones ($`x_0=y_0=0\mathrm{}`$, $`\theta =0\mathrm{°}`$), except for the ellipticity which does not correspond to the same physical meaning in the pseudo-elliptical NFW profile (Golse & Kneib, 2002). They were then kept fixed for the rest of the optimization. For the lens parameters, we found $`\sigma _0=1230_{50}^{+50}`$ km s-1, $`\theta _a=4.6\mathrm{}_{0.1}^{+0.2}`$ and $`\theta _s=190\mathrm{}_{10}^{+20}`$. The confidence levels in the $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_m,\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda )`$ plane are displayed in Fig. 9.

Although the reconstruction with a potential model different from the initial “real” one does not perfectly fit the data, the results are quite satisfactory. The confidence levels are even tighter than in the previous case, but the HK-type potential is characterised by one additional parameter or equivalently one degree of freedom less ($`\nu =11`$), compared to the pseudo-elliptical NFW profile. Nevertheless we find a minimum reduced $`\chi ^2=5`$ rather far from 0.

Several other mass profiles were tested as we wanted to discriminate between the different families of density profiles and test their sensitivity in the estimate of the cosmological parameters after the lens reconstruction. We used 5 types of profiles, namely:
i) the pseudo-elliptical NFW profile (Golse & Kneib, 2002),
ii) the singular isothermal ellipsoid (SIE) with $`\rho (R)=\rho _0/R^2`$, $`R`$ being the elliptical coordinate (Eq.(21)),
iii) the isothermal ellipsoid with core radius (CIE), obtained by replacing $`R`$ by $`\sqrt{R^2+a^2}`$ in the previous expression (see Kovner, 1989),
iv) the HK profile (Eq.(6)),
v) and the King profile characterised by

$$\rho (R)=\rho _0\frac{1+\frac{12\alpha }{3}R^2/a^2}{\left(1+R^2/a^2\right)^{2+\alpha }}.$$
(26)
The first 2 profiles are cusped, while the latter have a core radius and then an additional parameter. For each mass model, we generated the system of images defined in Table 2 (except for the SIE for which the radial system consists only of 2 images). We then fitted these images with the other 4 models. All the lens parameters were left free in this optimisation to get the minimum reduced $`\chi ^2`$. We did not change the cosmological parameters in these recoveries. The results are presented in Table 3. We note that the “core-radius” profiles (especially the HK and King ones) can easlily recover the systems generated by any other models. Indeed in the fit of cusped lens images by shallower profiles, the core radius can be reduced to very small values to mimic a large density slope near the center. This is not the case for the cusped models which cannot mimic images given by a finite core radius lens model.

#### 3.3.3 Influence of the number of multiple systems

In the preceding sections we considered 3 systems of multiple images. As the method proposed is based on the difference of angular distance ratios for different redshift planes, we now investigate the influence of the number of image families. The potential model is again an HK-type profile at $`z_\mathrm{L}=0.3`$ with $`\sigma _0=1400`$ km s-1, $`\theta _a=13.5`$″(i.e. 65 kpc), $`\theta _s=146`$ ″(i.e. 700 kpc) and $`ϵ=0.2`$. With 2 systems of images, we consider only 2 free parameters for the cluster, because there are not enough observables to yield results for more parameters, while in the other cases, 3 parameters are fitted. In all cases, these parameters are strongly constrained by the fit. Table 4 reports the errors on the fitted parameters in the optimisation process, for the different sets of multiple images detailed in Table 5. The differences in the fitted parameters between the different cases are small, as they are already well constrained with a single multiple images system.

The expected constraints on $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_m,\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda )`$ tighten when the number of families of multiple images increases (Fig. 10), especially when their redshift distribution is wide. 2 families would only provide marginal information on the cosmological parameters whereas 4 spectroscopically measured systems would give very tight error bars, provided they are well distributed in redshift.

#### 3.3.4 Influence of additional galaxy masses

In the previous parts, we considered only a main cluster potential with a regular morphology. We now test the contribution of individual galaxies, following the prescription used by Natarajan & Kneib (1996) as in Section 3.1. We generated 3 systems of multiple images formed by the sum of a main cluster with the mass density (HK-type) characterised by $`\sigma _0=1400`$ km s-1, $`\theta _a=13\mathrm{}`$ and $`\theta _s=150\mathrm{}`$ and 12 individual galaxies which represent 30% of the total cluster mass (Fig. 11).

The images were reconstructed using a main cluster potential with the same kind of shape as the initial one and the contribution of the galaxies scaled with $`\sigma _0^G`$. In addition, we fixed $`\sigma _0^G`$ proportional to $`\sigma _0`$ to avoid an increase of the number of free parameters. Consequently, any variation in $`\sigma _0`$ means a rescaling of the total mass of the cluster. So at first order we find that $`\sigma _0^2E`$ is constant when we scan the $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_m,\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda )`$ plane. Keeping the geometrical parameters fixed ($`x_0=y_0=0\mathrm{}`$, $`\theta =0\mathrm{°}`$, and $`ϵ=0.2`$), we obtain the confidence levels in the $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_m,\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda )`$ plane plotted in Fig. 12 and the following constraints on the potential parameters: $`\sigma _0=1400_{65}^{+60}`$ km s-1, $`\theta _a=13\mathrm{}_{0.3}^{+0.3}`$ and $`\theta _s=151\mathrm{}_1^{+1}`$.

To test the influence of the individual galaxies, we tried a reconstruction without their contribution. For the geometrical parameters first optimised we obtain $`x_0=0.227\mathrm{}`$, $`y_0=0.060\mathrm{}`$, $`\theta =0.748\mathrm{°}`$ and $`ϵ=0.193`$, still close to the generating values. The confidence levels in the $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_m,\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda )`$ plane are plotted in Fig. 13. The contours are slightly shifted and widened compared to the “good” ones (Fig. 12) but not significantly different. The minimum reduced $`\chi ^2`$ is 17. So we are able to correctly retrieve the cluster potential, even without the individual galaxies ($`\sigma _0=1380_{60}^{+70}`$ km s-1, $`\theta _a=11.9\mathrm{}_{0.2}^{+0.3}`$ and $`\theta _s=180\mathrm{}_3^{+3}`$). Adding their contribution is nevertheless useful to determine precisely the minimum region and to tighten the confidence levels. It becomes quite critical in more complex cases or when a single galaxy strongly perturbs the location of an image.

#### 3.3.5 Bi-modal cluster mass distribution

Up to this point, we have considered simple clusters, dominated by a single massive component. In reality, most clusters are not fully virialised and present sub-structure as the result of accretion processes or merging phases. With these more complex mass distributions, the lensing configurations are more widely distributed. Therefore we examine how the cosmological parameters can be constrained with this type of realistic mass distribution. We thus generated a bi-modal cluster consisting of two clumps of equal mass and 3 families of multiple images probing each part of the lens (Fig. 14). The total potential is axisymmetric and each clump is characterised by an HK-type elliptical mass profile. As the number of multiple images is rather small, we limited the number of parameters to recover and chose $`\sigma _0`$ and $`\theta _a`$ for each clump as adjustable variables. Therefore we fixed $`x_{01}=34\mathrm{}`$, $`x_{02}=34\mathrm{}`$, $`y_{01}=y_{02}=0\mathrm{}`$, $`\theta _1=45\mathrm{°}`$, $`\theta _2=+45\mathrm{°}`$, $`ϵ_1=ϵ_2=0.2`$ and $`\theta _{s1}=\theta _{s2}=167\mathrm{}`$.

Fixing again the initial values of $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_m^0,\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda ^0)`$ to the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM model $`(0.3,0.7)`$, we obtain the confidence levels plotted in Fig. 15. The contours are widened compared to the case of a single potential (in this case, the number of degrees of freedom is reduced from 11 to 6, but they still give reasonable constraints). Moreover we note that there is little variation in the fitted parameters: $`\sigma _{01}=1100_{50}^{+55}`$ km s-1, $`\sigma _{02}=1100_{45}^{+55}`$ km s-1, $`\theta _{a1}=12.1\mathrm{}_{0.1}^{+0.1}`$, and $`\theta _{a2}=12.1\mathrm{}_{0.2}^{+0.3}`$. This configuration is close to the case of the cluster Abell 370, modeled with a bi-modal mass distribution (Kneib et al., 1993b; Bézecourt et al., 1999b) needed to reproduce the peculiar shape of the central multiple-image system. Unfortunately, up to now only two redshifts are known for the multiple images identified in A370!

Last, we generated another system of 3 families of multiple images produced by a cluster consisting of a main clump ($`\sigma _0=1400`$ km s-1) and a smaller one ($`\sigma _0=500`$ km s-1) representing 22% of the total mass (Fig. 16). We chose to miss the small clump in the mass recovery as this may happen when dealing with some “dark clumps”. Fitting the configuration with a single main cluster, we found in a first round the geometrical parameters, which then remain constant in the $`\chi ^2`$-optimisation: $`x_0=0.348\mathrm{}`$, $`y_0=0.189\mathrm{}`$, $`\theta =1.880\mathrm{°}`$ and $`ϵ=0.259`$. We note in particular that the ellipticity is larger than the one used to generate the main clump ($`ϵ=0.2`$). This seems to be the response of the fitting process in order to mimic the missing second clump.

The parameters left free are again $`\sigma _0`$, $`\theta _a`$ and $`\theta _s`$. The confidence contours are shown in Fig. 17. We found the following values of the parameters: $`\sigma _0=1400_{70}^{+40}`$ km s-1, $`\theta _a=12.8\mathrm{}_{0.2}^{+0.2}`$ and $`\theta _s=169\mathrm{}_2^{+2}`$. However in this case, we do not recover correctly the set of cosmological parameters used to generate the system: $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_m,\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda )=(0.3,0.7)`$ is excluded at the 3-$`\sigma `$ level. Moreover the shape of the contours is not the one expected from the lensing degeneracy. This could be considered to be a signature of an incorrect fiducial mass distribution due to a missing clump in the mass reconstruction. This example demonstrates that the initial guess and the modeling of the different components of a cluster are very sensitive elements. They need to be carefully determined if one wants to test further constraints on the cosmological parameters

## 4 Conclusion and future prospects

In this paper we have explored in detail a method to obtain informations on the geometry of the Universe with gravitational lensing. It follows an approach first presented by Link & Pierce (LP98) which states that multiple imaging systems at different redshifts can provide constraints not only on the mass profile of the lensing cluster but also on second order parameters like $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ or $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda `$ – contained in angular size distances ratios. We have shown that this technique gives constraints which are degenerate in the $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_m,\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda )`$ plane and that the degeneracy is roughly perpendicular to the degeneracy issued from high-redshift supernovae searches. Moreover, the matter density $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ can be better constrained than the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$-term. Several simulations of lensing configurations are proposed, assuming reasonable conditions on the cluster-lens potential, such as a regular morphology modeled with only a few parameters. Provided high quality data can be obtained on at least 3 systems of multiple images, such as high resolution images (HST-type) for accurate image positions and deep spectroscopic data for the measurement of the source redshifts, we can expect typical error bars of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.30\pm 0.11`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda =0.70\pm 0.23`$.

It is important to underline that one cluster-lens with adequate multiple images would provide by itself a strong constraint on the geometry of the whole Universe. Such clusters are not that rare: MS2137.3–2353, MS0440.5+0204, A370, A1689, A2218, AC114 are certainly good candidates for such an experiment. A thorough and detailed analysis is still to be done and we have in hand most of the tools to address the problem immediately. Furthermore, as the exact degeneracy in the ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ , $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda `$) plane depends only on the values of the different redshift planes involved, combining results from different cluster-lenses can tighten the error bars. For illustration, we combined 6 different lens configurations and source redshifts, as listed in Table 6. Compared to the expected results with a single cluster (solid lines), the constraints can be improved significantly (Fig. 18).

Looking for a good accuracy on the cosmological parameters is a permanent search in cosmology. Although the curvature is now determined with a remarkable precision thanks to recent results from CMB balloon experiments, it is still very difficult to disentangle $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ from $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda `$ (Zaldarriaga et al., 1997). Therefore the advantages of joint analyses by several independent approaches have been pointed out (see White (1998) and Efstathiou et al. (1999)): combined results from the $`mz`$ relation for SNIa and CMB power spectrum analyses (which have orthogonal degeneracies) constrain $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ or $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda `$ separately with much higher accuracy than the individual experiments alone, leading to the currently favored model. One impressive example has been given by Hu & Tegmark (1999) who showed that a relatively small weak lensing survey could dramatically improve the accuracy of the cosmological parameters measured by future CMB missions.The combination of independent tests can improve the constraints as well as serve as a consistency check. This is clearly demonstrated by Helbig et al. (1999) who combine constraints from lensing statistics and distant SNIa to get a narrow range of possible values for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda `$. Therefore, gravitational lensing is a powerful complementary method to address the determination of the geometrical cosmological parameters and probably one of the cheapest ones, compared to CMB experiments or SNIa searches. Our technique, when applied to about 10 clusters, should be included in such joint analysis, to obtain a consistent picture on the present cosmological parameters. We are truly entering an era of accurate cosmology, where the overlap between the allowed regions of parameter space is becoming quite reduced.

###### Acknowledgements.

We would like to thank Jean-Luc Atteia, Judy Cohen, Harald Ebeling, Richard Ellis, Bernard Fort, Yannick Mellier, Peter Schneider and Ian Smail for fruitful discussions. We are grateful to Oliver Czoske for a careful reading of the manuscript. JPK acknowledges CNRS for support. This work benefits from the LENSNET European Gravitational Lensing Network No. ER-BFM-RX-CT97-0172.


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# Optimization of finite-range effective interaction for in-medium cross sections

## I Introduction

Effective interactions, like Skyrme  or Gogny  forces, associated with the mean-field theory have made it possible to describe a large body of nuclear properties along the whole nuclear chart . These forces are constantly refined to reproduce more and more precisely experimental observations . However, these effective forces encounter difficulties for describing quantities that are sensitive to the short range correlations such as nucleon-nucleon collisions cross-sections . For example, the nucleon-nucleon cross-sections calculated from Skyrme forces do not interpolate correctly between free-space and the medium, and reaches large values at low densities due to the unrestricted high momentum transfers. These difficulties become more dramatic in the applications of the extend mean-field approach to nuclear dynamics . Recently, it has been pointed out that serious difficulties arise when an effective Skyrme force is employed in the collision term of the extended Time-Dependent Hartree-Fock theory . More generally, such shortcomings are expected in transport theories that go beyond the mean-field approximation by including two-body correlations through residual interactions. In particular, in the applications of Boltzmann-type semi-classical transport models  or molecular dynamics calculations , the effective interactions are rarely adjusted for in-medium cross-sections, which may strongly influence the collision dynamics. In this work, we discuss an approximate treatment of incorporating the effect of finite range into Skyrme parameterization of the effective interactions, and optimize the parameters by fitting the nucleon-nucleon cross-sections to the microscopic in-medium cross-sections of Li and Machleidt

## II Effective forces with finite range.

Following ref. , we propose a modification of Skyrme interactions by introducing a cut-off factor $`𝒞\left(|<𝐪^2>|\right)`$ in the two-body interaction matrix elements of the form,

$$<ij|v|kl>=<ij|v_S|kl>𝒞\left(|<ij|𝐪^2|kl>|\right)$$
(1)
where $`v_S`$ represents $`t_0`$ and $`t_3`$ terms of the Skyrme interaction,

$`v_S=t_0(1+x_0P_\sigma )\delta \left(𝐫\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}t_3(1+x_3P_\sigma )\left[\rho \left(𝐑\right)\right]^\alpha \delta \left(𝐫\right)`$ (2)
with $`𝐫=𝐫_1𝐫_2`$ and $`𝐑=\left(𝐫_1+𝐫_2\right)/2`$. We assume that the cut-off factor $`𝒞`$ is a function of a matrix $`<ij|𝐪^2|kl>`$, which is determined by the expression,

$`<ij|\delta (𝐫)|kl><ij|𝐪^2|kl>=<ij|𝐪^2\delta (𝐫)+\delta (𝐫)𝐪^2|kl>`$ (3)
where $`𝐪=(𝐩_1𝐩_2)/2`$ represents the relative momentum operator. This quantity provides a measure for the relative momentum in finite systems, and for the special case of nuclear matter, the function $`𝒞`$ represents a cut-off in momentum space. The expression (1) is very convenient for practical applications, not only for nuclear matter but also for finite systems, since it does not introduce additional numerical effort as compared to Skyrme forces.

We can calculate the nucleon-nucleon cross-sections associated with the modified effective force (1). In the local density approximation, the expression of the cross-section is given by,

$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma }{d\mathrm{\Omega }}}\right)_{xy}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi }}_{xy}\left(\rho \right)\left[\overline{𝒞}\left(|<𝐪^2>|\right)\right]^2`$ (4)
where $`_{xy}\left(\rho \right)`$ account for the $`t_0`$ and $`t_3`$ part and involves density dependence, while $`\overline{𝒞}`$ comes from the cut-off factor. In this expression, the labels $`xy`$ denote the cross-section in the proton-neutron channel ($`np`$), the proton-proton channel ($`pp`$) and the neutron-neutron channel ($`nn`$), which are given by,

$`\begin{array}{cc}_{pn}\left(\rho \right)=\frac{\pi m^2}{4\mathrm{}\left(2\pi \mathrm{}\right)^3}\frac{1}{2}& ([t_0(1x_0)+\frac{t_3}{6}(1x_3)\rho ^\alpha ]^2\hfill \\ & +3[t_0(1+x_0)+\frac{t_3}{6}(1+x_3)\rho ^\alpha ]^2)\hfill \end{array}`$ (7)
and

$`\begin{array}{cc}_{pp}\left(\rho \right)=\frac{\pi m^2}{4\mathrm{}\left(2\pi \mathrm{}\right)^3}& \left[t_0(1x_0)+\frac{t_3}{6}(1x_3)\rho ^\alpha \right]^2\hfill \end{array}`$ (9)
with a similar expression for the neutron-neutron cross-section. The spin-isospin averaged total cross-sections is given by $`\sigma _{tot}=\left(\sigma _{nn}+\sigma _{pp}+2\sigma _{pn}\right)/4`$, where $`\sigma _{xy}=2\pi sin\mathrm{\Theta }𝑑\mathrm{\Theta }\left(d\sigma /d\mathrm{\Omega }\right)_{xy}`$ denotes the total cross-section in the corresponding channel. In the following, we refer to the density-dependent term associated with the total cross-section as $`_{tot}`$.

The choice of the cut-off $`𝒞`$ factor is not unique. For simplicity, we may parameterize the cut-off in terms of Gaussian or exponential functions. These cut-off functions, respectively, lead to a Gaussian and Breit-Wigner shapes in the momentum space,

$`\overline{𝒞}(q,q^{})`$ $`=`$ $`e^{\beta ^2(q^2+q^2)/\mathrm{}^2}`$ (10)
$`\overline{𝒞}(q,q^{})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{1+\beta ^2(q^2+q^2)/\mathrm{}^2}}`$ (12)
where $`𝐪=(𝐩_1𝐩_2)/2`$ and $`𝐪^{}=(𝐩_3𝐩_4)/2`$ represent the relative momenta before and after collisions. For elastic collisions, we have $`q=q^{}`$, thus the energy is given by $`E_{lab}=2q^2/m`$.

Figure 1 shows a typical example of energy dependence of in-medium cross-sections at normal nuclear matter density $`\rho _0`$. The results on the right panel are obtained with the SkM force  and using a Gaussian (thin lines) or a Breit-Wigner (thick lines) cut-off for different values of $`\beta `$. These results are compared to the microscopic calculations of Li and Machleidt, which are shown by circles. Left panel of figure 1 presents the energy dependence of cross-sections that are obtained using the full Skyrme SkM force and the Gogny force. From this figure, we first remark that the standard effective forces, like Skyrme or Gogny forces, provide a poor approximation for the energy dependence of the nucleon-nucleon cross-sections. We, also, see that calculations with the Gaussian or the Breit-Wigner cut-off are considerably improved and provide an approximate description for the cross-sections of Li and Machleidt . However, a cut-off factor with a single $`\beta `$ value is not able to reproduce the behavior of the cross section for a wide-range of energy. For example, with a Gaussian factor, $`\beta =1`$ fm gives a good approximation for the low energy part, while $`\beta =0.7`$ fm is better for the high energy part.

In order to improve the description of the cross-section in the whole energy range, we propose the following cut-off factor,

$`\overline{𝒞}(q,q^{})={\displaystyle \frac{1+\beta _1^2(q^2+q^2)/\mathrm{}^2}{1+\beta _2^2(q^2+q^2)/\mathrm{}^2}}`$ (13)
By comparing the calculations with this cut-off factor with the microscopic (pp) and (np) cross-sections, we deduce the best corresponding $`\beta _1`$ and $`\beta _2`$ coefficients for each channel and for different nuclear densities. The extracted values of $`\beta _1`$ and $`\beta _2`$, that are associated with SLy4  and SkM forces, are reported in table I and table II, respectively. We observe from these tables that for diluted systems the coefficients are less sensitive to nuclear density. Here, we consider the spin-isospin averaged cross-sections. For this purpose, by averaging over spin-isospin channel and also over different densities, we deduce average values of $`\beta _1=0.48`$ fm and $`\beta _2=2.41`$ fm for the SLy4 force, and $`\beta _1=0.29`$ fm and $`\beta _2=1.66`$ fm for the SkM force. In table III, we present different parameters for modified Skyrme forces, which are indicated by (SLy4)cut and (SkM)cut.

Figure 2 shows the total nucleon-nucleon cross-sections as a function of bombarding energy at nuclear densities $`\rho =\rho _0`$, $`\rho =\rho _0/2`$ and $`\rho =\rho _0/3`$. The thick lines show the result of our calculations, left panel for (SLy4)cut and right panel for (SkM)cut, with the parameters reported in table III. As seen from the figure, our calculations perfectly match the in-medium cross-sections of Li and Machleidt, which are indicated by circles. Figure 3 presents the total cross-section as a function of nuclear density at energies $`E_{lab}=50,100,250MeV`$. Again, a perfect agreement with the microscopic cross-sections is found for a wide range of nuclear density. In figures 2 and 3, dashed lines and thin lines show the results of the Gogny force and the full SLy4 force, respectively.

## III Conclusion

In this paper, in order to provide an approximate description of the in-medium nucleon-nucleon cross-sections, we discuss a modification of the effective Skyrme interactions by introducing a cut-off factor for large momentum transfer. We show that neither Gaussian nor Breit-Wigner cut-off in momentum space are appropriate for this purpose. We propose a new parameterization of the cut-off function and determine its parameters by fitting the microscopic in-medium cross-sections of Li and Machleidt, which interpolate correctly between the free-space and the medium and provide the best available in-medium cross-sections. The proposed modification approximately takes account for the finite range effect of the residual interactions, and provides a practical but realistic tool for application of transport models, in which the short range correlations are incorporated in the form of a binary collision term.

Acknowledgments

We thank Ph. Chomaz for discussion at the initial stage of this work One of us (S. A.) gratefully acknowledges GANIL Laboratory for a partial support and warm hospitality extended to him during his visit to Caen. This work is supported in part by the US DOE grant No. DE-FG05-89ER40530.