Strong lensing by cluster-sized halos in dark energy cosmologies

We study the efficiency of numerically simulated galaxy clusters for producing strong gravitational lensing events in different dark-energy cosmologies with constant and time-variable equation of state and we compare it with ``standard'' ΛCDM and OCDM models. Our main results are that: (1) the expected abundance of gravitational arcs with large length-to-width ratio depends on the equation of state of dark energy at the epoch of formation of the halo; (2) as found in previous studies, the strong lensing cross section of galaxy clusters is very sensitive to dynamical processes like mergers, whose impact however is different for different cosmologies, being stronger for models in which halos are less concentrated. As expected, the largest differences in the lensing optical depth occur at moderate and high redshift