Strong gravitational lensing and microlensing of supernovae

Understand

Strong gravitational lensing and microlensing of supernovae (SNe) are emerging as a new probe of cosmology and astrophysics in recent years.

• We provide an overview of this nascent research field, starting with a summary of the first discoveries of strongly lensed SNe.
• We describe the use of the time delays between multiple SN images as a way to measure cosmological distances and thus constrain cosmological parameters, particularly the Hubble constant, whose value is currently under heated debates.
• New methods for measuring the time delays in lensed SNe have been developed, and the sample of lensed SNe from the upcoming Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) is expected to provide competitive cosmological constraints.