Abstract

lenstronomy is an Astropy-affiliated Python package for gravitational lensing simulations and analyses. lenstronomy was introduced by Birrer and Amara (2018) and is based on the linear basis set approach by Birrer et a. (2015). The user and developer base of lenstronomy has substantially grown since then, and the software has become an integral part of a wide range of recent analyses, such as measuring the Hubble constant with time-delay strong lensing or constraining the nature of dark matter from resolved and unresolved small scale lensing distortion statistics. The modular design has allowed the community to incorporate innovative new methods, as well as to develop enhanced software and wrappers with more specific aims on top of the lenstronomy API. Through community engagement and involvement, lenstronomy has become a foundation of an ecosystem of affiliated packages extending the original scope of the software and proving its robustness and applicability at the forefront of the strong gravitational lensing community in an open source and reproducible manner.

Highlights

  • Gravitational lensing displaces the observed positions and distorts the shapes of apparent objects on the sky due to intervening inhomogeneous matter along the line of sight

  • Summary lenstronomy is an Astropy-affiliated (Astropy Collaboration et al, 2018, 2013) Python package for gravitational lensing simulations and analyses. lenstronomy was introduced by Birrer & Amara (2018) and is based on the linear basis set approach by Birrer et al (2015)

  • The user and developer base of lenstronomy has substantially grown since and the software has become an integral part of a wide range of recent analyses, such as measuring the Hubble constant with time-delay strong lensing or constraining the nature of dark matter from resolved and unresolved small scale lensing distortion statistics

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Summary

Background

Gravitational lensing displaces the observed positions and distorts the shapes of apparent objects on the sky due to intervening inhomogeneous matter along the line of sight. Small scale distortions in the lensing signal of resolved sources (Birrer, Amara, et al, 2017; Hezaveh et al, 2016; Vegetti et al, 2012) and unresolved flux ratios (Gilman et al, 2020; Hsueh et al, 2020) constrain the nature of dark matter. Combined strong lensing and kinematic observables constrain the formation and evolution of galaxies (Shajib, Treu, et al, 2021; Sonnenfeld et al, 2015), and the lensing magnification effect provides an otherwise inaccessible angle on the early Universe (Cava et al, 2018; Zheng et al, 2012)

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