Observations and Theoretical Implications of the Large‐Separation Lensed Quasar SDSS J1004+4112
Masamune OguriNaohisa InadaCharles R. KeetonB. PindorJoseph F. HennawiMichael D. GreggR. H. BeckerKuenley ChiuWei ZhengShinichi IchikawaYasushi SutoEdwin L. TurnerJ. AnnisNeta A. BahcallJ. BrinkmannF. J. CastanderDaniel J. EisensteinJoshua A. FriemanTomotsugu GotoJames E. GunnDavid E. JohnstonS. KentR. C. NicholGordon T. RichardsHans–Walter RixDonald P. SchneiderE. SheldonAlexander S. Szalay
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We study the recently discovered gravitational lens SDSS J1004+4112, the first quasar lensed by a cluster of galaxies. It consists of four images with a maximum separation of 1462. The system was selected from the photometric data of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and has been confirmed as a lensed quasar at z = 1.734 on the basis of deep imaging and spectroscopic follow-up observations. We present color-magnitude relations for galaxies near the lens plus spectroscopy of three central cluster members, which unambiguously confirm that a cluster at z = 0.68 is responsible for the large image separation. We find a wide range of lens models consistent with the data, and despite considerable diversity they suggest four general conclusions: (1) the brightest cluster galaxy and the center of the cluster potential well appear to be offset by several kiloparsecs; (2) the cluster mass distribution must be elongated in the north-south direction, which is consistent with the observed distribution of cluster galaxies; (3) the inference of a large tidal shear (~0.2) suggests significant substructure in the cluster; and (4) enormous uncertainty in the predicted time delays between the images means that measuring the delays would greatly improve constraints on the models. We also compute the probability of such large-separation lensing in the SDSS quasar sample on the basis of the cold dark matter model. The lack of large-separation lenses in previous surveys and the discovery of one in SDSS together imply a mass fluctuation normalization σ8 = 1.0 (95% confidence) if cluster dark matter halos have an inner density profile ρ ∝ r-1.5. Shallower profiles would require higher values of σ8. Although the statistical conclusion might be somewhat dependent on the degree of the complexity of the lens potential, the discovery of SDSS J1004+4112 is consistent with the predictions of the abundance of cluster-scale halos in the cold dark matter scenario.Keywords:
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Abstract Because of to its exceptional resolving power, Gaia should detect a few thousands gravitational lensed systems. These consist in multiple images of background quasars. The estimated number of lens phenomena in the sky, however, depends on the cosmological model considered. By taking into account the observational bias that will restrict the detection of lensed quasars, identification of these up to a given limiting magnitude will constrain the cosmological parameters. We have investigated the known gravitationally lensed quasars present in the Gaia DR1, and found that a significant number of components of these systems have been measured and are present in the Gaia DR1 catalogue although quasi none of them have all their components detected. We additionally examined the immediate surroundings of QSOs from the large Quasar catalogue, LQAC3, and detected several configurations compatible with gravitational lensing phenomena. A more global strategy to systematically detect the potential candidates in the various releases of the Gaia catalogue is presented.
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Early last year a pair of quasars—0957+561 A and B—was found whose spectra were almost identical. By now it is generally believed that these twin quasars are in fact a single quasar that is multiply imaged by a gravitational lens. Recent observations and model calculations suggest that this gravitational lens effect is produced primarily by the brightest member, G1, of a cluster of galaxies, with the other members collectively producing an important effect.
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We perform a statistical analysis of strong gravitational lensing by quasar hosts of background galaxies, in the two competing models of dark matter halos of quasars, HOD and CS models. Utilizing the BolshoiP Simulation we demonstrate that strong gravitational lensing provides a potentially very powerful test of models of quasar hosting halos. For quasars at $z=0.5$, the lensing probability by quasars of background galaxies in the HOD model is higher than that of the CS model by two orders of magnitude or more for lensing image separations in the range of $\theta\sim 1.2-12~$arcsec. To observationally test this, we show that, as an example, at the depth of the CANDELS wide field survey and with a quasar sample of $1000$ at $z=0.5$, the two models can be differentiated at $3-4\sigma$ confidence level.
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