Strong lensing in the MARENOSTRUM UNIVERSE

Context. Strong lensing is one of the most direct probes of mass distribution in the inner regions of galaxy clusters. It can be used to constrain the density profiles and to measure the mass of the lenses. Moreover, the abundance of strong lensing events can be used to constrain structure formation and cosmological parameters through the so-called “arc-statistics” approach. However, several issues related to the use of strong lensing clusters in cosmological applications are still controversial, leading to the suspicion that several biases may affect this very peculiar class of objects. Aims. With this study we aim a better understanding of the properties of galaxy clusters that can potentially act as strong lenses. Methods. We do so by investigating the properties of a large sample of galaxy clusters extracted from the N-body/hydrodynamical simulation Mar