The Hubble Constant from Gravitational Lens Time Delays

The lensed double QSO 0957+561 has a well-measured time delay and hence is useful for a global determination of H0. Uncertainty in the mass distribution of the lens is the largest source of uncertainty in the derived H0. We investigate the range of \hn produced by a set of lens models intended to mimic the full range of astrophysically plausible mass distributions, using as constraints the numerous multiply-imaged sources which have been detected. We obtain the first adequate...

Strong gravitational lens systems with measured time delays between the multiple images provide a method for measuring the "time-delay distance" to the lens, and thus the Hubble constant. We present a Bayesian analysis of the strong gravitational lens system B1608+656, incorporating (i) new, deep Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations, (ii) a new velocity dispersion measurement of 260+/-15 km/s for the primary lens galaxy, and (iii) an updated study of the lens' environmen...

Strong gravitational lens systems with time delays between the multiple images allow measurements of time-delay distances, which are primarily sensitive to the Hubble constant that is key to probing dark energy, neutrino physics, and the spatial curvature of the Universe, as well as discovering new physics. We present H0LiCOW ($H_0$ Lenses in COSMOGRAIL's Wellspring), a program that aims to measure $H_0$ with $<3.5\%$ uncertainty from five lens systems (B1608+656, RXJ1131-123...

The 0th, 1st and 2nd derivatives of a ``Fermat potential'' give the three D's of gravitational lensing: delay, deflection and distortion. Observations of these delays, deflections and distortions for doubly and quadruply imaged quasars give estimates of Hubble's constant, H_0. The single largest contribution to the uncertainty in H_0 arises from the difficulty in constraining the degree of central concentration of the lensing potential. Fortunately, astronomers have spent a g...

We present a blind time-delay cosmographic analysis for the lens system DES J0408$-$5354. This system is extraordinary for the presence of two sets of multiple images at different redshifts, which provide the opportunity to obtain more information at the cost of increased modelling complexity with respect to previously analyzed systems. We perform detailed modelling of the mass distribution for this lens system using three band Hubble Space Telescope imaging. We combine the m...

As a fundamental parameter for modern cosmology, the Hubble constant $H_0$ is experiencing a serious crisis. In this paper, we explore an independent approach to measure $H_0$ based on the time-delay cosmography with strong gravitational lensing of a quasar by a galaxy cluster. Specifically we focus on the strong lensing system SDSS J1004+4112 with the maximum image separation of 14.62$''$, the first system of a quasar lensed by a galaxy cluster with five multiple images. Inc...

Time delays between multiple images of lensed sources can probe the geometry of the universe. We propose a novel method based on free-form modelling of gravitational lenses to estimate time-delay distances and, in turn, cosmological parameters. This approach does not suffer from the degeneracy between the steepness of the profile and the cosmological parameters. We apply the method to 18 systems having time delay measurements and find H_0=69+-6(stat.)+-4(syst.) km s^{-1}Mpc^{...

In this work, we present a homogeneous curve-shifting analysis using the difference-smoothing technique of the publicly available light curves of 24 gravitationally lensed quasars, for which time delays have been reported in the literature. The uncertainty of each measured time delay was estimated using realistic simulated light curves. The recipe for generating such simulated light curves with known time delays in a plausible range around the measured time delay is introduce...

Isothermal models and other simple smooth models of dark matter halos of gravitational lenses often predict a dimensionless time delay $H_0\Delta t$ much too small to be comfortable with the observed time delays $\Delta t$ and the widely accepted $H_0$ value ($\sim 70$ km/s/Mpc). This conflict or crisis of the CDM has been highlighted by several recent papers of Kochanek, who claims that the standard value of $H_0$ favors a strangely small halo as compact as the stellar light...

Time-delay cosmography is a powerful technique to constrain cosmological parameters, particularly the Hubble constant ($H_{0}$). The TDCOSMO collaboration is performing an ongoing analysis of lensed quasars to constrain cosmology using this method. In this work, we obtain constraints from the lensed quasar~WGD$\,$2038$-$4008~using new time-delay measurements and previous mass models by TDCOSMO. This is the first TDCOSMO lens to incorporate multiple lens modeling codes and the...