Large-Scale Gravitational Lens Modeling with Bayesian Neural Networks for Accurate and Precise Inference of the Hubble Constant (2012.00042v2)

Abstract: We investigate the use of approximate Bayesian neural networks (BNNs) in modeling hundreds of time-delay gravitational lenses for Hubble constant ($H_0$) determination. Our BNN was trained on synthetic HST-quality images of strongly lensed active galactic nuclei (AGN) with lens galaxy light included. The BNN can accurately characterize the posterior PDFs of model parameters governing the elliptical power-law mass profile in an external shear field. We then propagate the BNN-inferred posterior PDFs into ensemble $H_0$ inference, using simulated time delay measurements from a plausible dedicated monitoring campaign. Assuming well-measured time delays and a reasonable set of priors on the environment of the lens, we achieve a median precision of $9.3$\% per lens in the inferred $H_0$. A simple combination of 200 test-set lenses results in a precision of 0.5 $\textrm{km s}^{-1} \textrm{ Mpc}^{-1}$ ($0.7\%$), with no detectable bias in this $H_0$ recovery test. The computation time for the entire pipeline -- including the training set generation, BNN training, and $H_0$ inference -- translates to 9 minutes per lens on average for 200 lenses and converges to 6 minutes per lens as the sample size is increased. Being fully automated and efficient, our pipeline is a promising tool for exploring ensemble-level systematics in lens modeling for $H_0$ inference.