Micro- and milli-lensing studies of quasars and dark matter sub-haloes

In force date
Call year
2024
Investigator
Evencio Mediavilla Gradolph
Amount granted to the IAC Consortium
37.750,00 €
Description

Summary of the coordinated Project: 
Gravitational lenses are a powerful tool for astrophysics and cosmology. We will combine our group's experience in the theory and observation of gravitational lenses to achieve the following goals: (i) to study the nature and abundance of different types of dark deflectors over a very large mass range in a variety of scenarios using micro- and milli-lensing: planets, stars, PBHs (or any intra-cluster population of compact objects), sub-haloes and central SMBHs of quasars, (ii) to probe the innermost regions of quasars and AGNs (BLR, accretion disk, and perhaps BH shadows and horizons) using the extreme dissection power (both in space and in velocity) of microlensing caustic crossings and the kinematics of some species (such as Fe III) confined to the disk, and (iii) the development of new methods, techniques, and strategies (especially machine learning and neural networks) to attempt goals (i) and (ii) in the advent of the massive data supply from the new telescopes (especially LSST). 

 

Summary of subproject 1 
The main objectives of the subproject are: (i) to calibrate a Mass(Luminosity,Fe II gravitational redshift) relationship for quasars using primary sources of virial masses of AGNs available in the literature, (ii) to analyze the spectral monitoring of some AGN to infer (using reverberation mapping or gravitational microlensing) the size of the Fe III and/or Fe II emitting regions to obtain individual mass estimates of AGNs, (iii) to use microlensing magnification maps based on the mass density profiles of sub-haloes of cosmological simulations (such as TNG50) to compare the predicted anomalies (in flux ratios and astrometry of the images of lensed quasars) with the observed ones, and (iv) extend this study to other paradigms of substructure formation like WDM or Fuzzy-DM. 

State of being in force
Level
Type of funding
State
AEI
EU_COFINANCIADO POR LA UNIÓN EUROPEA
MICIU