Galaxy density profiles and shapes -- I. simulation pipeline for lensing by realistic galaxy models

Understand

Studies of strong gravitational lensing in current and upcoming wide and deep photometric surveys, and of stellar kinematics from (integral-field) spectroscopy at increasing redshifts, promise to provide valuable constraints on galaxy density profiles and shapes.

• However, both methods are affected by various selection and modelling biases, whch we aim to investigate in a consistent way.
• In this first paper in a series we develop a flexible but efficient pipeline to simulate lensing by realistic galaxy models.
• These galaxy models have separate stellar and dark matter components, each with a range of density profiles and shapes representative of early-type, central galaxies without significant contributions from other nearby galaxies.