Pseudo Elliptical NFW Lensing Mass Model

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  • 6 December 2001
Abstract
In this letter we introduce analytical expressions for a pseudo-elliptical projected Navarro, Frenk & White (NFW) mass profile to be used in lensing equations. The formalism developed here incorporates the ellipticity into the expression for the deflection angle, with the result that the associated mass distribution is pseudo-elliptical. This approach can be applied to any circular mass profile for which the projected mass profile Sigma(r) and the deflection angle profile alpha(r) both have analytical expressions. Here, we apply this new formalism to the NFW profile and study how well this pseudo-elliptical NFW model describes an elliptical mass distribution. We conclude that the pseudo-elliptical NFW model is a good description of elliptical mass distributions provided that the ellipticity of the projected mass distribution is <~ 0.5, although with a slightly boxy distribution.

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