A deconstruction of methods to derive one-point lensing statistics

Gravitational lensing is a crucial tool for exploring cosmic phenomena, providing insights into galaxy clustering, dark matter, and dark energy. Given the substantial computational demands of $N$-body simulations, approximate methods like $\texttt{PINOCCHIO}$ and $\texttt{turboGL}$ offer viable alternatives for simulating lensing probability density functions (PDFs). This paper evaluates these methods in contexts where baryonic effects are negligible, focusing on dark matter-dominated models and assessing their effectiveness across both weak and strong lensing regimes. Our comparative analysis reveals that these methods are particularly effective for applications involving electromagnetic and gravitational wave point sources, where strong lensing events are infrequent. Both $\texttt{PINOCCHIO}$ and $\texttt{turboGL}$ perform well in modeling the weak-lensing region influenced by mildly nonlinear structures. However, they lose accuracy in capturing small-scale nonlinear matter fields, owing to oversimplified assumptions about internal halo structures and reliance on perturbation theory. The analysis shows that $\texttt{PINOCCHIO}$ achieves an 8-15% agreement with $N$-body simulations for the second-to-fourth moments of lensing PDFs. These findings aim to inform future studies on gravitational lensing of point sources, which are increasingly relevant with upcoming supernova and gravitational wave datasets.