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Title: Discovery of two gravitationally lensed quasars in the Dark Energy Survey

Journal Article · · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (Online)
 [1]
  1. PAB, Los Angeles, CA (United States). et al.
+ Show Author Affiliations

In this study, we present spectroscopic confirmation of two new lensed quasars via data obtained at the 6.5m Magellan/Baade Telescope. The lens candidates have been selected from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) and WISE based on their multi-band photometry and extended morphology in DES images. Images of DES J0115-5244 show two blue point sources at either side of a red galaxy. Our long-slit data confirm that both point sources are images of the same quasar at zs = 1.64. The Einstein Radius estimated from the DES images is 0.51''. DES J2146-0047 is in the area of overlap between DES and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Two blue components are visible in the DES and SDSS images. The SDSS fiber spectrum shows a quasar component at zs = 2.38 and absorption compatible with Mg II and Fe II at zl = 0.799, which we tentatively associate with the foreground lens galaxy. The long-slit Magellan spectra show that the blue components are resolved images of the same quasar. Furthermore, the Einstein Radius is 0.68'' corresponding to an enclosed mass of 1.6 × 1011 M⊙. Three other candidates were observed and rejected, two being low-redshift pairs of starburst galaxies, and one being a quasar behind a blue star. These first confirmation results provide an important empirical validation of the data-mining and model-based selection that is being applied to the entire DES dataset.

Research Organization:
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States); SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
Contributing Organization:
DES Collaboration
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-07CH11359; AC02-76SF00515
OSTI ID:
1221334
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1263419
Report Number(s):
FERMILAB-PUB-15-341-AE; SLAC-PUB-16619; arXiv eprint number arXiv:1508.01203
Journal Information:
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (Online), Vol. 454, Issue 2; ISSN 1365-2966
Publisher:
Royal Astronomical SocietyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 37 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (20)

COSMOGRAIL: the COSmological MOnitoring of GRAvItational Lenses: XVI. Time delays for the quadruply imaged quasar DES J0408−5354 with high-cadence photometric monitoring⋆ journal January 2018
VEXAS: VISTA EXtension to Auxiliary Surveys: Data Release 1. The southern Galactic hemisphere journal October 2019
The SDSS-III BOSS quasar lens survey: discovery of 13 gravitationally lensed quasars journal December 2015
VDES J2325−5229 a z = 2.7 gravitationally lensed quasar discovered using morphology-independent supervised machine learning journal November 2016
Probing dark matter substructure in the gravitational lens HE 0435−1223 with the WFC3 grism journal June 2017
Discovery and first models of the quadruply lensed quasar SDSS J1433+6007 journal November 2017
H0LiCOW – I. H0 Lenses in COSMOGRAIL's Wellspring: program overview journal February 2017
A gravitationally lensed quasar discovered in OGLE journal February 2018
Bright lenses are easy to find: spectroscopic confirmation of lensed quasars in the Southern Sky journal December 2018
Quasar lenses in the south: searches over the DES public footprint journal August 2019
Discovery of three strongly lensed quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey journal March 2018
The DES Bright Arcs Survey: Hundreds of Candidate Strongly Lensed Galaxy Systems from the Dark Energy Survey Science Verification and Year 1 Observations journal September 2017
VDES J2325-5229 a z=2.7 gravitationally lensed quasar discovered using morphology independent supervised machine learning text January 2017
H0LiCOW I. $H_0$ Lenses in COSMOGRAIL's Wellspring: Program Overview text January 2016
VDES J2325-5229 a z=2.7 gravitationally lensed quasar discovered using morphology independent supervised machine learning text January 2016
Discovery and first models of the quadruply lensed quasar SDSS J1433+6007 text January 2017
A Gravitationally Lensed Quasar Discovered in OGLE text January 2018
Quasar Lenses in the South: searches over the DES public footprint text January 2018
Bright lenses are easy to find: Spectroscopic confirmation of lensed quasars in the Southern Sky text January 2018
Time delay cosmography journal July 2016

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Related Subjects

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS
gravitational lensing: strong
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methods: observational
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