Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

Quasar lenses and pairs in the VST-ATLAS and Gaia

Agnello, A.; Schechter, P.L.; Morgan, N.D.; Treu, T.; Grillo, C.; Malesani, D.; Anguita, T.; Apostolovski, Y.; Rusu, C.E.; Motta, V.; Rojas, K.; Chehade, B.; Shanks, T.

Quasar lenses and pairs in the VST-ATLAS and Gaia Thumbnail


Authors

A. Agnello

P.L. Schechter

N.D. Morgan

T. Treu

C. Grillo

D. Malesani

T. Anguita

Y. Apostolovski

C.E. Rusu

V. Motta

K. Rojas

B. Chehade



Abstract

We report on discovery results from a quasar lens search in the ATLAS-DR3 public footprint. Spectroscopic follow-up campaigns, conducted at the 2.6 m Nordic Optical Telescope (La Palma) and 3.6 m New Technology Telescope (La Silla) in 2016, yielded seven pairs of quasars exhibiting the same lines at the same redshift and monotonic flux ratios with wavelength (hereafter NIQs, nearly identical quasar pairs). Magellan spectra of A0140−1152 (01h40m03 s. 0–11d52m19 s. 0, zs = 1.807) confirm it as a lens with deflector at zl = 0.277 and Einstein radius θE = (0.73 ± 0.02) arcsec. Follow-up imaging of the NIQ A2213−2652 (22h13m38 s. 4–26d52m27 s. 1) reveals the deflector galaxy and confirms it as a lens. We show the use of spatial resolution from the Gaia mission to select lenses and list additional systems from a WISE-Gaia-ATLAS search, yielding three additional lenses (02h35m27 s. 4–24d33m13 s. 2, 02h59m33s–23d38m01 s. 8, 01h46m32 s. 9–11d33m39 s. 0). The overall sample consists of 11 lenses/NIQs, plus three lenses known before 2016, over the ATLAS-DR3 footprint (≈3500 deg2). Finally, we discuss future prospects for objective classification of pair/NIQ/contaminant spectra.

Citation

Agnello, A., Schechter, P., Morgan, N., Treu, T., Grillo, C., Malesani, D., …Shanks, T. (2018). Quasar lenses and pairs in the VST-ATLAS and Gaia. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 475(2), 2086-2096. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stx3226

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Dec 8, 2017
Online Publication Date Dec 13, 2017
Publication Date Apr 1, 2018
Deposit Date Mar 29, 2018
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2018
Journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Print ISSN 0035-8711
Electronic ISSN 1365-2966
Publisher Royal Astronomical Society
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 475
Issue 2
Pages 2086-2096
DOI https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stx3226
Public URL https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1363276

Files

Published Journal Article (1.4 Mb)
PDF

Copyright Statement
This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ©: 2017 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.






You might also like



Downloadable Citations