English

Gravitational lensing by a generalised-NFW halo via the Fox $H$-function and its application to the super-NFW

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2025-06-03 v2

Abstract

We present an analytical framework for a family of axisymmetric gravitational lenses, in which we express the lensing properties in terms of the Fox HH-function. We apply this framework to a generalised-NFW (gNFW) profile, where we provide the power series representation of the Fox HH-functions involved, and explore their performance and accuracy. From these power series we show that the corresponding Fox HH-functions reduce to simple expressions in terms of the Gauss hypergeometric function. We apply these results to the particular case of the super-NFW (sNFW) profile, obtaining simpler expressions, this time in terms of complete elliptic functions (which are easier to work with). When the number of images formed is maximum, the sum of their signed magnifications denoted as II, is constant for several lenses. We study its behaviour for the sNFW, NFW and Hernquist lenses, and show that for a fixed κ0\kappa_0 (characteristic convergence), in general, II is not constant (IminIImaxI_{\text{min}}\leq I \leq I_{\text{max}}), as it exhibits a strong dependence on the source position inside the radial caustic. The boundaries depend on κ0\kappa_0 (and so does the average I\langle I \rangle). Our numerical experiments suggest that for these lenses Imin1I_{\text{min}}\to 1 as κ0\kappa_0 increases, and I1I\to 1 as κ0\kappa_0\to \infty. Additionally, II is constant only for a specific κ0\kappa_0, which is different for each model.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2406.07695,
  title  = {Gravitational lensing by a generalised-NFW halo via the Fox $H$-function and its application to the super-NFW},
  author = {Daniel Alexdy Torres-Ballesteros and Leonardo Castañeda},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2406.07695},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

Version accepted for publication in MNRAS