A Geometric Probe of Cosmology -- II. Gravitational Lensing Time Delays and Quasar Reverberation Mapping Revisited

Abstract

The time delay between images of strongly gravitationally lensed quasars is an established cosmological probe. Its limitations, however, include uncertainties in the assumed mass distribution of the lens. We re-examine the methodology of a prior work presenting a geometric probe of cosmology independent of the lensing potential which considers differential time delays over images, originating from spatially-separated photometric signals within a strongly lensed quasar. We give an analytic description of the effect of the differential lensing on the emission line spectral flux for axisymmetric Broad Line Region geometries, with the inclined ring or disk, spherical shell, and double cone as examples. The proposed method is unable to recover cosmological information as the observed time delay and inferred line-of-sight velocity do not uniquely map to the three-dimensional position within the source.