Three Gravitational Lenses for the Price of One: Enhanced Strong Lensing through Galaxy Clustering | Zendy

C. D. Fassnacht | Zendy; J. P. McKean | Zendy; L. V. E. Koopmans | Zendy; Tommaso Treu | Zendy; R. D. Blandford | Zendy; Matthew W. Auger | Zendy; T. Jeltema | Zendy; L. M. Lubin | Zendy; V. E. Margoniner | Zendy; David Wittman | Zendy

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Three Gravitational Lenses for the Price of One: Enhanced Strong Lensing through Galaxy Clustering

Author(s) -

C. D. Fassnacht,

J. P. McKean,

L. V. E. Koopmans,

Tommaso Treu,

R. D. Blandford,

Matthew W. Auger,

T. Jeltema,

L. M. Lubin,

V. E. Margoniner,

David Wittman

Publication year - 2006

Publication title -

the astrophysical journal

Language(s) - English

Resource type - Journals

SCImago Journal Rank - 2.376

H-Index - 489

eISSN - 1538-4357

pISSN - 0004-637X

DOI - 10.1086/507623

Subject(s) - physics , astrophysics , gravitational lens , galaxy , velocity dispersion , lens (geology) , astronomy , strong gravitational lensing , galaxy group , redshift , elliptical galaxy , quasar , fundamental plane (elliptical galaxies) , lenticular galaxy , optics

We report the serendipitous discovery of two strong gravitational lenscandidates (ACS J160919+6532 and ACS J160910+6532) in deep images obtained withthe Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope, each less than40 arcsec from the previously known gravitational lens system CLASS B1608+656.The redshifts of both lens galaxies have been measured with Keck and Gemini:one is a member of a small galaxy group at z~0.63, which also includes thelensing galaxy in the B1608+656 system, and the second is a member of aforeground group at z~0.43. By measuring the effective radii and surfacebrightnesses of the two lens galaxies, we infer their velocity dispersionsbased on the passively evolving Fundamental Plane (FP) relation. Ellipticalisothermal lens mass models are able to explain their image configurationswithin the lens hypothesis, with a velocity dispersion compatible with thatestimated from the FP for a reasonable source-redshift range. Based on thelarge number of massive early-type galaxies in the field and the number-densityof faint blue galaxies, the presence of two additional lens systems aroundCLASS B1608+656 is not unlikely in hindsight. Gravitational lens galaxies arepredominantly early-type galaxies, which are clustered, and the lensed quasarhost galaxies are also clustered. Therefore, obtaining deep high-resolutionimages of the fields around known strong lens systems is an excellent method ofenhancing the probability of finding additional strong gravitational lenssystems.Comment: Submitted to ApJ. 8 pages, 6 figure

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