2024ApJ...967...92W

Galaxy-cluster gravitational lenses enable the study of faint galaxies even at large lookback times, and, recently, time-delay constraints on the Hubble constant. There have been few tests, however, of lens model predictions adjacent to the critical curve (≲8″) where the magnification is greatest. In a companion paper, we use the GLAFIC lens model to constrain the Balmer L-σ relation for H II regions in a galaxy at redshift z = 1.49 strongly lensed by the MACS J1149 galaxy cluster. Here we perform a detailed comparison between the predictions of 10 cluster lens models that employ multiple modeling assumptions with our measurements of 11 magnified, giant H II regions. We find that that the models predict magnifications an average factor of 6.2 smaller, a ∼2σ tension, than that inferred from the H II regions under the assumption that they follow the low-redshift L-σ relation. To evaluate the possibility that the lens model magnifications are strongly biased, we next consider the flux ratios among knots in three images of Sp1149, and find that these are consistent with model predictions. Moreover, while the mass-sheet degeneracy could in principle account for a factor of ∼6 discrepancy in magnification, the value of H₀ inferred from SN Refsdal's time delay would become implausibly small. We conclude that the lens models are not likely to be highly biased, and that instead the H II regions in Sp1149 are substantially more luminous than the low-redshift Balmer L-σ relation predicts.