Phil Marshall edited Time Delay Distribution.tex  almost 11 years ago

Commit id: 5f88ed6c2c300038a75015cbee9e0f8f2ca87da4

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For a given lens system, the time delays between images can be as short as $\sim$days for close pairs of images to as long as $\sim$100s of days for images on opposite side of the lensing galaxy. The magnitude of these time delays (as well as the other observables) depends on the redshifts of the source $z_{\rm src}$ and the lens galaxy $z_{\rm lens}$, and therefore it is important to understand the expected distribution of those parameters in the LSST data. \citet[][hereafter OM10]{OM10} generated a mock catalog of LSST lensed AGN based on plausible models for the source quasars and lens galaxies, and simple assumptions for the detectability of lensed quasars (including published 10$\sigma$ limiting magnitude estimates, and the assumption that lenses will be detected if the third (second) brightest image for a given quad (double) is above this limit). This catalog provides a distribution of time delays that will be present in the LSST data which we can use to guide or generation of mock light curves.   Figure \ref{fig:tdel_hist} shows the $\log_{10} \Delta t$ distributions for the OM10 double and quad sample. The distributions are roughly log-normal with means $\sim$10s of days and tails extending below 1 dayespecially  for the quads. It is important to note that, the goal quads, and above 100 days  for this time delay challenge is to measure the doubles. Lenses in both of these tails will have  time delays that are difficult  to percent accuracy (i.e., $\sim0.1$ dy) {\bf PJM: we should say this earlier on, measure, because cadence isn't high enough  or refer because the seasons are not long enough. We expect some fraction of time delay measurements  to fail catastrophically in this way, but we also expect  the metric section further down (if thats where it is going catastrophe rate  to go).}. vary with measurement algorithm.