Strong lensing optical depths in a LCDM universe II: the influence of the stellar mass in galaxies

Abstract

We investigate how strong gravitational lensing in the concordance LCDM cosmology is affected by the stellar mass in galaxies. We extend our previous studies, based on ray-tracing through the Millennium Simulation, by including the stellar components predicted by galaxy formation models. We find that the inclusion of these components greatly enhances the probability for strong lensing compared to a `dark matter only' universe. The identification of the `lenses' associated with strong-lensing events reveals that the stellar mass of galaxies (i) significantly enhances the strong-lensing cross-sections of group and cluster halos, and (ii) gives rise to strong lensing in smaller halos, which would not produce noticeable effects in the absence of the stars. Even if we consider only image splittings >10 arcsec, the luminous matter can enhance the strong-lensing optical depths by up to a factor of 2.