Measurement of differential magnification

Abstract

In gravitational lensing, the magnification effect changes the luminosity and size of a background galaxy. If the image sizes are not small compared to the scale over which the magnification and shear vary, higher-order distortions occur which are termed differential magnification. We give an approximation of the magnification gradient for several halo models. Assuming a symmetric distribution of source brightness, estimates for the differential magnification are obtained and then tested with simulations. One of the main uncertainties of our estimators comes from the finite resolution of the image. We study the strength of our method with the resolution of current and future telescopes. We point out that out method is a potential approach to estimate the first flexion, and can be used to study galaxy and cluster mass profiles.