HerMES: CANDIDATE GRAVITATIONALLY LENSED GALAXIES AND LENSING STATISTICS AT SUBMILLIMETER WAVELENGTHS
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697 (United States)
- NASA, Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035 (United States)
- Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, Royal Observatory, Blackford Hill, Edinburgh EH9 3HJ (United Kingdom)
- Laboratoire AIM-Paris-Saclay, CEA/DSM/Irfu-CNRS-Universite Paris Diderot, CE-Saclay, pt courrier 131, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette (France)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 136 Frelinghuysen Rd, Piscataway, NJ 08854 (United States)
- Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States)
- California Institute of Technology, 1200 E. California Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States)
- Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille-LAM, Universite Aix-Marseille and CNRS, UMR7326, 38 rue F. Joliot-Curie, F-13388 Marseille Cedex 13 (France)
- Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC), E-38200 La Laguna, Tenerife (Spain)
- Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii, 2680 Woodlawn Drive, Honolulu, HI 96822 (United States)
We present a list of 13 candidate gravitationally lensed submillimeter galaxies (SMGs) from 95 deg{sup 2} of the Herschel Multi-tiered Extragalactic Survey, a surface density of 0.14 {+-} 0.04 deg{sup -2}. The selected sources have 500 {mu}m flux densities (S {sub 500}) greater than 100 mJy. Gravitational lensing is confirmed by follow-up observations in 9 of the 13 systems (70%), and the lensing status of the four remaining sources is undetermined. We also present a supplementary sample of 29 (0.31 {+-} 0.06 deg{sup -2}) gravitationally lensed SMG candidates with S {sub 500} = 80-100 mJy, which are expected to contain a higher fraction of interlopers than the primary candidates. The number counts of the candidate lensed galaxies are consistent with a simple statistical model of the lensing rate, which uses a foreground matter distribution, the intrinsic SMG number counts, and an assumed SMG redshift distribution. The model predicts that 32%-74% of our S {sub 500} {>=} 100 mJy candidates are strongly gravitationally lensed ({mu} {>=} 2), with the brightest sources being the most robust; this is consistent with the observational data. Our statistical model also predicts that, on average, lensed galaxies with S {sub 500} = 100 mJy are magnified by factors of {approx}9, with apparently brighter galaxies having progressively higher average magnification, due to the shape of the intrinsic number counts. 65% of the sources are expected to have intrinsic 500 {mu}m flux densities less than 30 mJy. Thus, samples of strongly gravitationally lensed SMGs, such as those presented here, probe below the nominal Herschel detection limit at 500 {mu}m. They are good targets for the detailed study of the physical conditions in distant dusty, star-forming galaxies, due to the lensing magnification, which can lead to spatial resolutions of {approx}0.''01 in the source plane.
- OSTI ID:
- 22167328
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 762, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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