A new method for the estimate of H_0 from quadruply imaged gravitational lens systems

Abstract

We present a new method to estimate the Hubble constant H_0 from the measured time delays in quadruply imaged gravitational lens systems. We show how it is possible to get an estimate of H_0 without the need to completely reconstruct the lensing potential thus avoiding any a priori hypotheses on the expression of the galaxy lens model. Our method only needs to assume that the lens potential may be expressed as r^{\alpha} F(\theta), whatever the shape function F(\theta) is, and it is thus able to fully explore the degeneracy in the mass models taking also into account the presence of an external shear. We test the method on simulated cases and show that it does work well in recovering the correct value of the slope \alpha of the radial profile and of the Hubble constant H_0. Then, we apply the same method to the real quadruple lenses PG1115+080 and B1422+231 obtaining H_0 = 58_{-15}^{+17} km/s/Mpc (68% CL).