On modeling galaxy-scale strong lens systems

Abstract

I review methods for modeling gravitational lens systems comprising multiple images of a background source surrounding a foreground galaxy. In a Bayesian framework, the likelihood is driven by the nature of the data, which in turn depends on whether the source is point-like or extended. The prior encodes astrophysical expectations about lens galaxy mass distributions, either through a careful choice of model families, or through an explicit Bayesian prior applied to under-constrained free-form models. We can think about different lens modeling methods in terms of their choices of likelihoods and priors.