Foreground Galaxies Around Luminous Quasars

We compare galaxy counts in deep R-band exposures of the fields of 36 highly luminous, high redshift QSOs to those in control fields at a distance of 1 deg. We find indication for a weak overdensity of galaxies in the foreground of QSOs on scales of arcminutes on a low significance level. Counts inside rings around the quasars, stars in the quasar fields and stars in the control fields show evidence for an excess of galaxies on scales of several arcseconds around the quasars as well as for a stronger clustering of galaxies in the QSO fields than in the control fields. We interpret. this in terms of an amplification bias by gravitational lensing.