Thirty-fold: Extreme Gravitational Lensing of a Quiescent Galaxy at z=1.6

Heather Ebling; Mikkel Bo Rohde Stockmann; J. Richard; J. Zabl; G. Brammer; Sune Toft; A. Man

doi:10.3847/2041-8213/aa9fee

Thirty-fold: Extreme Gravitational Lensing of a Quiescent Galaxy at z=1.6

Heather Ebling, Mikkel Bo Rohde Stockmann, J. Richard, J. Zabl, G. Brammer, Sune Toft, A. Man

8 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We report the discovery of eMACSJ1341-QG-1, a quiescent galaxy at z = 1.594 located behind the massive galaxy cluster eMACSJ1341.9-2442 (z = 0.835). The system was identified as a gravitationally lensed triple image in Hubble Space Telescope images obtained as part of a snapshot survey of the most X-ray luminous galaxy clusters at z > 0.5 and spectroscopically confirmed in ground-based follow-up observations with the ESO/X-Shooter spectrograph. From the constraints provided by the triple image, we derive a first, crude model of the mass distribution of the cluster lens, which predicts a gravitational amplification of a factor of ∼30 for the primary image and a factor of ∼6 for the remaining two images of the source, making eMACSJ1341-QG-1 by far the most strongly amplified quiescent galaxy discovered to date. Our discovery underlines the power of SNAPshot observations of massive, X-ray selected galaxy clusters for lensing-assisted studies of faint background populations.

Original language	English
Journal	Astrophysics Journal Letters
Volume	852
Issue number	1
Pages (from-to)	L7-L11
Number of pages	4
ISSN	2041-8205
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/aa9fee
Publication status	Published - 1 Jan 2018

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title = "Thirty-fold: Extreme Gravitational Lensing of a Quiescent Galaxy at z=1.6",

abstract = "We report the discovery of eMACSJ1341-QG-1, a quiescent galaxy at z = 1.594 located behind the massive galaxy cluster eMACSJ1341.9-2442 (z = 0.835). The system was identified as a gravitationally lensed triple image in Hubble Space Telescope images obtained as part of a snapshot survey of the most X-ray luminous galaxy clusters at z > 0.5 and spectroscopically confirmed in ground-based follow-up observations with the ESO/X-Shooter spectrograph. From the constraints provided by the triple image, we derive a first, crude model of the mass distribution of the cluster lens, which predicts a gravitational amplification of a factor of ∼30 for the primary image and a factor of ∼6 for the remaining two images of the source, making eMACSJ1341-QG-1 by far the most strongly amplified quiescent galaxy discovered to date. Our discovery underlines the power of SNAPshot observations of massive, X-ray selected galaxy clusters for lensing-assisted studies of faint background populations.",

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doi = "10.3847/2041-8213/aa9fee",

language = "English",

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T1 - Thirty-fold

T2 - Extreme Gravitational Lensing of a Quiescent Galaxy at z=1.6

AU - Ebling, Heather

AU - Stockmann, Mikkel Bo Rohde

AU - Richard, J.

AU - Zabl, J.

AU - Brammer, G.

AU - Toft, Sune

AU - Man, A.

PY - 2018/1/1

Y1 - 2018/1/1

N2 - We report the discovery of eMACSJ1341-QG-1, a quiescent galaxy at z = 1.594 located behind the massive galaxy cluster eMACSJ1341.9-2442 (z = 0.835). The system was identified as a gravitationally lensed triple image in Hubble Space Telescope images obtained as part of a snapshot survey of the most X-ray luminous galaxy clusters at z > 0.5 and spectroscopically confirmed in ground-based follow-up observations with the ESO/X-Shooter spectrograph. From the constraints provided by the triple image, we derive a first, crude model of the mass distribution of the cluster lens, which predicts a gravitational amplification of a factor of ∼30 for the primary image and a factor of ∼6 for the remaining two images of the source, making eMACSJ1341-QG-1 by far the most strongly amplified quiescent galaxy discovered to date. Our discovery underlines the power of SNAPshot observations of massive, X-ray selected galaxy clusters for lensing-assisted studies of faint background populations.

AB - We report the discovery of eMACSJ1341-QG-1, a quiescent galaxy at z = 1.594 located behind the massive galaxy cluster eMACSJ1341.9-2442 (z = 0.835). The system was identified as a gravitationally lensed triple image in Hubble Space Telescope images obtained as part of a snapshot survey of the most X-ray luminous galaxy clusters at z > 0.5 and spectroscopically confirmed in ground-based follow-up observations with the ESO/X-Shooter spectrograph. From the constraints provided by the triple image, we derive a first, crude model of the mass distribution of the cluster lens, which predicts a gravitational amplification of a factor of ∼30 for the primary image and a factor of ∼6 for the remaining two images of the source, making eMACSJ1341-QG-1 by far the most strongly amplified quiescent galaxy discovered to date. Our discovery underlines the power of SNAPshot observations of massive, X-ray selected galaxy clusters for lensing-assisted studies of faint background populations.

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DO - 10.3847/2041-8213/aa9fee

M3 - Journal article

SN - 2041-8205

VL - 852

SP - L7-L11

JO - The Astrophysical Journal Letters

JF - The Astrophysical Journal Letters

IS - 1

ER -

Thirty-fold: Extreme Gravitational Lensing of a Quiescent Galaxy at z=1.6

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