Testing strong lensing subhalo detection with a cosmological simulation

Understand

Strong gravitational lensing offers a compelling test of the cold dark matter paradigm, as it allows for subhaloes with masses of $\sim10^{9}$ M$_\odot$ and below to be detected.

• We test commonly-used techniques for detecting subhaloes superposed in images of strongly lensed galaxies.
• For the lens we take a simulated galaxy in a $\sim10^{13}$ M$_\odot$ halo grown in a high-resolution cosmological hydrodynamical simulation, which we view from two different directions.
• Though the resolution is high, we note the simulated galaxy still has an artificial core which adds additional complexity to the baryon dominated region.