Paper detail

Comparison of weak lensing by NFW and Einasto halos and systematic errors

Recent N-body simulations have shown that Einasto radial profiles provide the most accurate description of dark matter halos. Predictions based on the traditional NFW functional form may fail to describe the structural properties of cosmic objects at the percent level required by precision cosmology. We computed the systematic errors expected for weak lensing analyses of clusters of galaxies if one wrongly models the lens density profile. Even though the NFW fits of observed tangential shear profiles can be excellent, viral masses and concentrations of very massive halos (>~ 10^{15}M_Sun/h) can be over- and underestimated by ~10 per cent, respectively. Misfitting effects also steepen the observed mass-concentration relation, as observed in multi-wavelength observations of galaxy groups and clusters. Based on shear analyses, Einasto and NFW halos can be set apart either with deep observations of exceptionally massive structures (>~ 2\times10^{15}M_Sun/h) or by stacking the shear profiles of thousands of group-sized lenses (>~ 10^{14}M_Sun/h).