A Hamiltonian, post-Born, three-dimensional, on-the-fly ray tracing algorithm for gravitational lensing

Bibliographic Details
Title: A Hamiltonian, post-Born, three-dimensional, on-the-fly ray tracing algorithm for gravitational lensing
Authors: Zhou, Alan Junzhe, Li, Yin, Dodelson, Scott, Mandelbaum, Rachel, Zhang, Yucheng, Li, Xiangchong, Fabbian, Giulio
Publication Year: 2024
Collection: Astrophysics
Subject Terms: Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics, Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
More Details: The analyses of the next generation cosmological surveys demand an accurate, efficient, and differentiable method for simulating the universe and its observables across cosmological volumes. We present Hamiltonian ray tracing (HRT) -- the first post-Born (accounting for lens-lens coupling and without relying on the Born approximation), three-dimensional (without assuming the thin-lens approximation), and on-the-fly (applicable to any structure formation simulations) ray tracing algorithm based on the Hamiltonian formalism. HRT performs symplectic integration of the photon geodesics in a weak gravitational field, and can integrate tightly with any gravity solver, enabling co-evolution of matter particles and light rays with minimal additional computations. We implement HRT in the particle-mesh library $\texttt{pmwd}$, leveraging hardware accelerators such as GPUs and automatic differentiation capabilities based on $\texttt{JAX}$. When tested on a point-mass lens, HRT achieves sub-percent accuracy in deflection angles above the resolution limit across both weak and moderately strong lensing regimes. We also test HRT in cosmological simulations on the convergence maps and their power spectra.
Comment: 26 pages, 8 figures; as published in JCAP
Document Type: Working Paper
DOI: 10.1088/1475-7516/2024/10/069
Access URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2405.12913
Accession Number: edsarx.2405.12913
Database: arXiv
More Details
DOI:10.1088/1475-7516/2024/10/069