Weighing Galaxies Inside-Out: Small-Scale Lensing and the Stellar Mass Problem

Abstract

Small-scale galaxy-galaxy weak lensing provides an independent way to probe the stellar initial mass function by constraining the matter distribution within galaxies. We forecast the potential of upcoming \textit{Euclid} observations using realistic mock catalogues designed for a DESI-like Bright Galaxy Survey, which is expected to cover approximately $9000\,\mathrm{deg}^2$ of the \textit{Euclid} wide survey area. We assess the impact of foreground lens light, which introduces significant scale-dependent biases in source detection, photometry, and shape measurements. Subtracting the lens light with \textsc{Galfit} reduces these biases by nearly an order of magnitude at scales down to four times the half-light radius. We model the predicted lensing signal around central galaxies with stellar masses between $9.5 \leq \log(M_*/h^{-2}M_\odot) \leq 11.5$ over projected separations of $10$ to $100\,h^{-1}\mathrm{kpc}$. The resulting signal-to-noise ratios reach $\sim 150$ for intermediate-mass galaxies. Assuming an NFW profile for the dark matter contribution, we constrain the stellar mismatch parameter $α$ to a precision of approximately $8.5$ percent for the full sample and $8.6$ percent for massive galaxies. These results highlight the potential of small-scale galaxy--galaxy weak lensing as a robust probe of the IMF and the connection between stellar and dark matter in galaxies using upcoming \textit{Euclid} data.