Gravitational lensing properties of isothermal universal halo profile (1212.3907v1)

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, the halos will become more concentrated, and similar to an isothermal sphere over large range in radii ($\sim 300$ $h^{-1}$kpc). The singular isothermal sphere 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 a Singular Isothermal Sphere 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 on small and large radii.