The Cosmic Lens All-Sky Survey:II. Gravitational lens candidate selection and follow-up
I. W. A. Browne, P. N. Wilkinson, N. J. F. Jackson, S. T. Myers, C. D. Fassnacht, L. V. E. Koopmans, D. R. Marlow, M. Norbury, D. Rusin, C. M. Sykes, A. D. Bigg… 展开作者
I. W. A. Browne, P. N. Wilkinson, N. J. F. Jackson, S. T. Myers, C. D. Fassnacht, L. V. E. Koopmans, D. R. Marlow, M. Norbury, D. Rusin, C. M. Sykes, A. D. Biggs, R. D. Blandford, A. G. de Bruyn, K-H. Chae, P. Helbig, L. J. King, J. P. McKean, T. J. Pearson, P. M. Phillips, A. C. S. Readhead, E. Xanthopoulos, T. York
备注：
v2: web link in the abstract fixed; some corrections made in section 6.1
We report the final results of the search for gravitationally lensed flat-spectrum radio sources found in the combination of CLASS (Cosmic Lens All Sky Survey) and JVAS (Jodrell-Bank VLA Astrometric Survey). VLA observations of 16,503 sources have been made, resulting in the largest sample of arcsec-scale lens systems available. Contained within the 16,503 sources is a complete sample of 11,685 sources having two-point spectral indices between 1.4 and 5 GHz flatter than -0.5 and 5 GHz flux densities $\geq$30 mJy. A subset of 8,958 sources form a well-defined statistical sample suitable for analysis of the lens statistics. We describe the systematic process by which 149 candidate lensed sources were picked from the statistical sample on the basis of possessing multiple compact components in the 0.2 arcsec-resolution VLA maps. Candidates were followed up with 0.05 arcsec resolution MERLIN and 0.003 arcsec VLBA observations at 5 GHz and rejected as lens systems if they failed well-defined surface brightness and/or morphological tests. Maps for all the candidates can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/research/gravlens/index.html We summarize the properties of each of the 22 gravitational lens systems in JVAS/CLASS. Twelve are double-image systems, nine are four-image systems and one is a six-image system. Thirteen constitute a statistically well-defined sample giving a point-source lensing rate of 1:690$\pm$190. The interpretation of the results in terms of the properties of the lensing galaxy population and cosmological parameters will be published elsewhere. (Abridged)
We use the statistics of strong gravitational lensing based on the Cosmic Lens All-Sky Survey (CLASS) data to constrain cosmological parameters in a spatially-flat, inverse power-law potential energy density, scalar-field dark energy cosmological model. The lensing-based constraints are consistent with, but weaker than, those derived from Type Ia supernova redshift-magnitude data, and mildly favor the Einstein cosmological constant limit of this dark energy model.
Large scale structure deflects cosmic microwave background (CMB) photons. Since large angular scales in the large scale structure contribute significantly to the gravitational lensing effect, a realistic simulation of CMB lensing requires a sufficiently large sky area. We describe simulations that include these effects, and present both effective and multiple plane ray-tracing versions of the algorithm, which employs spherical harmonic space and does not use the flat sky approximation. We simulate lensed CMB maps with an angular resolution of ~0.9 arcmin. The angular power spectrum of the simu…
While the strategy for the first applications of weak lensing has been to ``go deep'' it is equally interesting to use one's telescope time to instead ``go wide''. The Sloan Survey (SDSS) provides a natural framework for a very wide area weak lensing survey.
Gravitational lensing of the microwave background by the intervening dark matter mainly arises from large-angle fluctuations in the projected gravitational potential and hence offers a unique opportunity to study the physics of the dark sector at large scales. Studies with surveys that cover greater than a percent of the sky will require techniques that incorporate the curvature of the sky. We lay the groundwork for these studies by deriving the full sky minimum variance quadratic estimators of the lensing potential from the CMB temperature and polarization fields. We also present a general te…
We report the discovery of the two-image gravitationally lensed quasar SDSS J133222.62+034739.9 (SDSS J1332+0347) with an image separation of Delta_theta=1.14". This system consists of a source quasar at z_s=1.445 and a lens galaxy at z_l=0.191. The agreement of the luminosity, ellipticity and position angle of the lens galaxy with those expected from lens model confirms the lensing hypothesis.
We report on a novel search for radio gravitational lenses. Using the Very Large Array, we imaged ten candidates with both dual redshifts in Sloan Digital Sky Survey spectra and 1.4 GHz radio flux >2 mJy in the FIRST survey. The VLA maps show that in each case the radio emission is associated with the foreground galaxy rather than being lensed emission from the background galaxy, although at least four of our targets are strong lenses at optical wavelengths. These SDSS dual-redshift systems do not have lensed radio emission at the sensitivity of current radio surveys.
(abridged) We study the accuracy of various approximations to cosmic shear and weak galaxy-galaxy lensing and investigate effects of Born corrections and lens-lens coupling. We use ray-tracing through the Millennium Simulation to calculate various cosmic-shear and galaxy-galaxy-lensing statistics. We compare the results from ray-tracing to semi-analytic predictions. We find: (i) The linear approximation provides an excellent fit to cosmic-shear power spectra as long as the actual matter power spectrum is used as input. Common fitting formulae, however, strongly underestimate the cosmic-shear p…
We address the question of whether the angular power spectrum of the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) sky is further distorted by weak gravitational lensing of foreground large-scale structures. Using an analytic approach to both gaseous and dark halo models, we show that the contamination of weak lensing in the measurement of SZ power power is negligibly small, and relatively corrections |ΔC_l|/C_l are less than 3% up to l=10^5. This arises from both the weaker gravitational potentials of low-redshift matter inhomogeneities that can act as lenses for SZ sources (clusters) and the shallower sha…
We derive constraints on cosmological parameters and the properties of the lensing galaxies from gravitational lens statistics based on the final Cosmic Lens All Sky Survey (CLASS) data. For a flat universe with a classical cosmological constant, we find that the present matter fraction of the critical density is $Ω_{\rm m}=0.31^{+0.27}_{-0.14}$ (68%) $^{+0.12}_{-0.10}$ (systematic). For a flat universe with a constant equation of state for dark energy $w = p_x({pressure})/ρ_x({energy density})$, we find $w < -0.55^{+0.18}_{-0.11}$ (68%).
We present the discovery of four gravitationally lensed quasars selected from the spectroscopic quasar catalog of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We describe imaging and spectroscopic follow-up observations that support the lensing interpretation of the following four quasars: SDSS J0832+0404 (image separation θ=1.98", source redshift z_s=1.115, lens redshift z_l=0.659); SDSS J1216+3529 (θ=1.49", z_s=2.012); SDSS J1322+1052 (θ=2.00", z_s=1.716); and SDSS J1524+4409 (θ=1.67", z_s=1.210, z_l=0.320). Each system has two lensed images. We find that the fainter image component of SDSS J0832+0404 is s…
We present a weak lensing analysis of the Coma Cluster using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release Five. Complete imaging of a ~ 200 square degree region is used to measure the tangential shear of this cluster. The shear is fit to an NFW model and we find a virial radius of r_{200}=1.99_{-0.22}^{+0.21}h^{-1}Mpc which corresponds to a virial mass of M_{200}=1.88_{-0.56}^{+0.65}\times10^{15}h^{-1}M_{\odot}. We additionally compare our weak lensing measurement to the virial mass derived using dynamical techniques, and find they are in agreement. This is the lowest redshift, largest ang…
The third phase of the Cosmic Lens All-Sky Survey (CLASS) has recently been completed, bringing the total number of sources imaged to over 15000 in the CLASS and JVAS combined survey. In the VLA observations carried out in March and April of 1998, two new candidate lensed systems were discovered: CLASS B1152+199 and B1359+154. B1152+199 is a 1.6 arcsecond double, with a background quasar at z=1.019 lensed by a foreground galaxy at z=0.439. The relatively flat radio spectra of the lensed images, combined with a previous ROSAT detection of the source, make B1152+199 a strong candidate for time d…
We present a catalog of 49 spectroscopic strong gravitational lens candidates selected from a Sloan Digital Sky Survey sample of 50996 luminous red galaxies. Potentially lensed star-forming galaxies are detected through the presence of background oxygen and hydrogen nebular emission lines in the spectra of these massive foreground galaxies. This multiline selection eliminates the ambiguity of single-line identification and provides a very promising sample of candidate galaxy-galaxy lens systems at low to intermediate redshift, with foreground redshifts ranging from 0.16 to 0.49 and background …
We report the discoveries of the two-image gravitationally lensed quasars, SDSS J0746+4403 and SDSS J1406+6126, selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). SDSS J0746+4403, which will be included in our lens sample for statistics and cosmology, has a source redshift of z_s=2.00, an estimated lens redshift of z_l~0.3, and an image separation of 1.08". SDSS J1406+6126 has a source redshift of z_s=2.13, a spectroscopically measured lens redshift of z_l=0.27, and an image separation of 1.98". We find that the two quasar images of SDSS J1406+6126 have different intervening MgII absorption st…
Recent weak lensing observations have pushed the use of 4 meter-class telescopes to the limits of their capabilities with exposure times exceeding several hours. The leading idea is that the surface density of faint galaxies up to very faint magnitude ($B > 28-30$) raises continuously thus potentially offering a dense template of distant sources whose intensity contrast is at the sky noise level. In complement to the Peter Schneider's presentation on dark matter search from weak lensing (this conference), we review some of these recent advances in weak lensing analysis based on this extreme fa…
We present the first automated spectroscopic search for disk-galaxy lenses, using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey database. We follow up eight gravitational lens candidates, selected among a sample of ~40000 candidate massive disk galaxies, using a combination of ground-based imaging and long-slit spectroscopy. We confirm two gravitational lens systems: one probable disk galaxy, and one probable S0 galaxy. The remaining systems are four promising disk-galaxy lens candidates, as well as two probable gravitational lenses whose lens galaxy might be an S0 galaxy. The redshifts of the lenses are z_len…
The wave effect in the gravitational lensing phenomenon by a straight cosmic string is investigated. The interference pattern is expressed in terms of a simple formula. We demonstrate that modulations of the interfered wave amplitude can be a unique signature of the wave effect. We briefly mention a possible chance of detecting the wave effect in future gravitational wave observatories.
The existence of a dark energy component has usually been invoked as the most plausible way to explain the recent observational results. However, it is also well known that effects arising from new physics (e.g., extra dimensions) can mimic the gravitational effects of a dark energy through a modification of the Friedmann equation. In this paper we investigate some observational consequences of a flat, matter dominated and accelerating/decelerating scenario in which this modification is given by $H^{2} = g(ρ_m, n, q)$ where $g(ρ_m, n, q)$ is a new function of the energy density $ρ_m$, the so-c…
The present status of weak lensing analyses of clusters of galaxies and of cosmic shear surveys are presented and discussed. We focus on the impact of very large telescopes on present-day and future surveys and compare their potential with HST or wide field 4 meter telescopes.
A possible method to reconstruct the cosmic equation of state using strong gravitational lensing systems is proposed. The feasibility of the method is investigated by carrying out the reconstruction on the basis of a simple Monte-Carlo simulation. We show that the method can work and that the cosmic equation of state $w(z)$ can be determined within errors of $Δw\sim \pm0.1$ -- $\pm0.2$ when a sufficiently large number of lensing systems ($N\sim 20$) for $z\simlt 1$ are precisely measured. Statistics of lensed sources in a wide and deep survey like the SDSS are also briefly discussed.
We report the discovery of two doubly-imaged quasars, SDSS J100128.61+502756.9 and SDSS J120629.65+433217.6, at redshifts of 1.838 and 1.789 and with image separations of 2.86'' and 2.90'', respectively. The objects were selected as lens candidates from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Based on the identical nature of the spectra of the two quasars in each pair and the identification of the lens galaxies, we conclude that the objects are gravitational lenses. The lenses are complicated; in both systems there are several galaxies in the fields very close to the quasars, in addition to the l…
We report the discovery of five gravitationally lensed quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). All five systems are selected as two-image lensed quasar candidates from a sample of high-redshift (z>2.2) SDSS quasars. We confirmed their lensing nature with additional imaging and spectroscopic observations. The new systems are SDSS J0819+5356 (source redshift z_s=2.237, lens redshift z_l=0.294, and image separation θ=4.04"), SDSS J1254+2235 (z_s=3.626, θ=1.56"), SDSS J1258+1657 (z_s=2.702, θ=1.28"), SDSS J1339+1310 (z_s=2.243, θ=1.69"), and SDSS J1400+3134 (z_s=3.317, θ=1.74"). We estim…
We use the large cosmological Millennium Simulation (MS) to construct the first all-sky maps of the lensing potential and the deflection angle, aiming at gravitational lensing of the CMB, with the goal of properly including small-scale non-linearities and non-Gaussianity. Exploiting the Born approximation, we implement a map-making procedure based on direct ray-tracing through the gravitational potential of the MS. We stack the simulation box in redshift shells up to $z\sim 11$, producing continuous all-sky maps with arcminute angular resolution. A randomization scheme avoids repetition of str…
We analyze the photometric redshift catalog of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 5 (SDSS DR5) to estimate the Fisher information in the galaxy angular power spectrum with the help of the Rimes-Hamilton technique. It is found that the amount of Fisher information contained in the galaxy angular power spectrum is saturated at lensing multipole scale 300<= l <= 2000 in the redshift range 0.1<= photo-z <0.5. At l=2000, the observed information is two orders of magnitude lower than the case of Gaussian fluctuations. This supports observationally that the translinear regime of the density po…
We work in the framework of an inflationary cold dark matter universe with cosmological constant, in which the cosmological inhomogeneities are considered as gravitational lenses for the CMB photons. This lensing deforms the angular distribution of the CMB maps in such a way that the induced deformations are not Gaussian. Our main goal is the estimation of the deviations with respect to Gaussianity appeared in the distribution of deformations. In the new approach used in this paper, matter is evolved with a particle-mesh N-body code and, then, an useful ray-tracing technique designed to calcul…
CSL-1 (Capodimonte--Sternberg--Lens Candidate, No.1) is an extragalactic double source detected in the OAC-DF (Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte - Deep Field). It can be interpreted either as the chance alignment of two identical galaxies at z=0.46 or as the first case of gravitational lensing by a cosmic string. Extensive modeling shows in fact that cosmic strings are the only type of lens which (at least at low angular resolution) can produce undistorted double images of a background source. We propose an experimentum crucis to disentangle between these two possible explanations. If th…
We present Archeops, a balloon-borne bolometer experiment designed to map a large part of the sky at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths. The main scientific goal is to study the Cosmic Microwave Background anisotropies on all scales, in order to properly derive the cosmological parameters of the Universe. We present the sky coverage map of the first scientific flight.
We report the discovery of a new two-image gravitationally lensed quasar, SDSS J024634.11-082536.2 (SDSS J0246-0825). This object was selected as a lensed quasar candidate from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) by the same algorithm that was used to discover other SDSS lensed quasars (e.g., SDSS J0924+0219). Multicolor imaging with the Magellan Consortium's Walter Baade 6.5-m telescope and the spectroscopic observations using the W. M. Keck Observatory's Keck II telescope confirm that SDSS J0246-0825 consists of two lensed images ($Δθ=$1\farcs04) of a source quasar at z=1.68. Imaging observa…
We report the first results of our systematic search for strongly lensed quasars using the spectroscopically confirmed quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Among 46,420 quasars from the SDSS Data Release 3 (~4188 deg^2), we select a subsample of 22,683 quasars that are located at redshifts between 0.6 and 2.2 and are brighter than the Galactic extinction corrected i-band magnitude of 19.1. We identify 220 lens candidates from the quasar subsample, for which we conduct extensive and systematic follow-up observations in optical and near-infrared wavebands, in order to construct a comp…
We present cosmological results from the statistics of lensed quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Quasar Lens Search. By taking proper account of the selection function, we compute the expected number of quasars lensed by early-type galaxies and their image separation distribution assuming a flat universe, which is then compared with 7 lenses found in the SDSS Data Release 3 to derive constraints on dark energy under strictly controlled criteria. For a cosmological constant model (w=-1) we obtain Ω_Λ=0.74^{+0.11}_{-0.15}(stat.)^{+0.13}_{-0.06}(syst.). Allowing w to be a free paramet…
We study the deflection of light in the background of a "wiggly" cosmic string, and investigate whether it is possible to detect cosmic strings by means of weak gravitational lensing. For straight strings without small-scale structure there are no signals. In the case of strings with small-scale structure leading to a local gravitational attractive force towards the string, there is a small signal, namely a preferential elliptical distortion of the shape of background galaxies in the direction corresponding to the projection of the string onto the sky. The signal can be statistically distingui…
Gravitational lensing, caused by matter perturbations along the line-of-sight to the last scattering surface, can modify the shape of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy power spectrum. We discuss the detectability of lensing distortions to the temperature, polarisation and temperature-polarisation cross-correlation power spectra and we analyse how lensing might affect the estimation of cosmological parameters. For cold dark matter-like models with present-day matter power spectra normalised to match the abundances of rich clusters of galaxies, gravitational lensing causes detecta…
We discuss a possibility to directly reconstruct the CMB polarization field at the last scattering surface by accounting for modifications imposed by the gravitational lensing effect. The suggested method requires a tracer field of the large scale structure lensing potentials that deflected propagating CMB photons from the last scattering surface. This required information can come from a variety of observations on the large scale structure matter distribution, including convergence reconstructed from lensing shear studies involving galaxy shapes. In the case of so-called curl, or B,-modes of …
We consider the gravitational lensing produced by long cosmic strings formed in a GUT scale phase transition. We derive a formula for the deflection of photons which pass near the strings that reduces to an integral over the light cone projection of the string configuration plus constant terms which are not important for lensing. Our strings are produced by performing numerical simulations of cosmic string networks in flat, Minkowski space ignoring the effects of cosmological expansion. These strings have more small scale structure than those from an expanding universe simulation - fractal dim…
We present investigations of lens phenomenological properties of cosmic strings for deep galaxy surveys. General results that have obtained for lineic energy distribution are presented first. We stress that generically the local convergence always vanishes in presence of strings although there might be some significant distortions. We then propose a simplified model of strings, we call ``Poisson strings'', for which exhaustive investigations can be done either numerically or analytically.
This paper presents a prescription for distilling the information contained in the cosmic microwave background radiation from multiple sky maps that also contain both instrument noise and foreground contaminants. The prescription is well-suited for cosmological parameter estimation and accounts for uncertainties in the cosmic microwave background extraction scheme. The technique is computationally viable at low resolution and may be considered a natural and significant generalization of the "Internal Linear Combination" approach to foreground removal. An important potential application is the …
It is argued that, in models where the gravitational coupling is scale-dependent, predictions concerning weak gravitational lensing and shear are essentially similar to the ones derived from General Relativity. This is consistent with recent negative results of observations of the MS1224, CL2218 and A1689 systems aimimg to infer from those methods the presence of dark matter. It is shown, however, that the situation is quite different when an analysis based on the Cosmic Virial Theorem is concerned.
We have studied the effect of gravitational lensing on the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropy in flat and open universes. We develop a formalism to calculate the changes on the radiation power spectrum induced by lensing in the Newtonian and synchronous-comoving gauges. The previously considered negligible contribution to the CMB radiation power spectrum of the anisotropic term of the lensing correlation is shown to be appreciable. However, considering the nonlinear evolution of the matter power spectrum produces only slight differences on the results based on linear evolution. The g…
It has been suggested that cosmic strings produced at a phase transition in the early universe can be the origin of the extremely high energy cosmic rays (EHCR) observed by AGASA above 10^20 eV. Superheavy cosmic strings with linear mass density of 10^22 g/cm can be indirectly observed through the gravitational lensing effect the distant galaxies. The lensing effect by a long straight object can be characterized by a line of double galaxies or quasars with angular separation of about 5 arcsec. We have searched for aligned double objects from the archived data taken by the Subaru Prime Focus Ca…
I discuss the use of cross correlations between galaxies with distance information and projected weak lensing dark matter maps to obtain a fully three dimensional dark matter map and power spectrum. On large scales l<100 one expects the galaxies to be biased, but not stochastic. I show that this allows a simultaneous solution of the full 3-D evolving galaxy bias and the dark matter power spectrum simultaneously. Within the photo-z information of the CFH lensing legacy survey, this allows a threefold reduction of statistical error, while a cross correlation with CLAR or other deep spectroscopic…
We investigate the weak gravitational lensing effect due to the large-scale structure of the universe on two-point correlations of local maxima ({\em hotspots}) in the 2D sky map of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy. According to the Gaussian random statistics as most inflationary scenarios predict, the hotspots are discretely distributed with some {\em characteristic} angular separations on the last scattering surface owing to oscillations of the CMB angular power spectrum. The weak lensing then causes pairs of hotspots which are separated with the characteristic scale to be ob…
Cosmic strings were postulated by Kibble in 1976 and, from a theoretical point of view, their existence finds support in modern superstring theories, both in compactification models and in theories with extended additional dimensions. Their eventual discovery would lead to significant advances in both cosmology and fundamental physics. One of the most effective ways to detect cosmic strings is through their lensing signatures which appear to be significantly different from those introduced by standard lenses (id est, compact clumps of matter). In 2003, the discovery of the peculiar object CSL-…
We present the selection of the Jodrell Bank Flat-spectrum (JBF) radio source sample, which is designed to reduce the uncertainties in the Cosmic Lens All-Sky Survey (CLASS) gravitational lensing statistics arising from the lack of knowledge about the parent population luminosity function. From observations at 4.86 GHz with the Very Large Array, we have selected a sample of 117 flat-spectrum radio sources with flux densities greater than 5 mJy. These sources were selected in a similar manner to the CLASS complete sample and are therefore representative of the parent population at low flux dens…
I review the current status of combing weak gravitational lensing with depth information from redshifts as a direct probe of dark matter and dark energy in the Universe. In particular I highlight: (1) The first maximum likelihood measurement of the cosmic shear power spectrum, with the COMBO17 dataset (Brown et al 2003); (2) A new method for mapping the 3-D dark matter distribution from weak shear, and its first application to the COMBO17 dataset (Taylor et al 2003); (3) A new method for measuring the Dark Energy of the Universe using purely the geometry of gravitational lensing, based on cros…
It is estimated that a star brighter than visual magnitude 17 is undergoing a detectable gravitational microlensing event, somewhere on the sky, at any given time. It is assumed that both lenses and sources are normal stars drawn from a standard Bahcall-Soneira model of our Galaxy. Furthermore, over the time scale of a year, a star 15th magnitude or brighter should undergo a detectable gravitational lens amplification. Detecting and studying the microlensing event rate among the brightest 10$^8$ stars could yield a better understanding of Galactic stellar and dark matter distributions. Diligen…
We discuss several effects due to lensing of ultra high energy cosmic rays by the regular component of the galactic magnetic field. Large flux magnification around caustics can be a significant source of clustering in the arrival directions of UHECRs of comparable energy. We also discuss lensing effects in a hypothetical galactic magnetic wind model recently proposed to explain the extremely high energy cosmic rays so far observed as originating from a single source (M87). This model implies large flux magnifications, which reduce the power requirements on the source, and a significant asymmet…
We model the extremely massive and luminous lens galaxy in the Cosmic Horseshoe Einstein ring system, recently discovered in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We use the semi-linear method of Warren & Dye (2003), which pixelises the source surface brightness distribution, to invert the Einstein ring for sets of parameterised lens models. Here, the method is refined by exploiting Bayesian inference to optimise adaptive pixelisation of the source plane and to choose between three differently parameterised models: a singular isothermal ellipsoid, a power law model and a NFW profile. The most probable…
Phases of the spherical harmonic analysis of full-sky cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature data contain useful information complementary to the ubiquitous angular power spectrum. In this letter we present a new method of phase analysis on incomplete sky maps. It is based on Fourier phases of equal-latitude pixel rings of the map, which are related to the mean angle of the trigonometric moments from the full-sky phases. They have an advantage for probing regions of interest without tapping polluted Galactic plane area, and can localize non-Gaussian features and departure from statistic…
We revisit the gravitational lensing phenomenon using a new visualization technique. It consists in projecting the observers sky into the source plane, what gives rise to a folded and stretched surface. This provides a clear graphical tool to visualize some interesting well-known effects, such as the development of multiple images of a source, the structure of the caustic curves, the parity of the images and their magnification as a function of the source position.
A cosmic ray observatory with full-sky coverage can exploit standard anisotropy analysis methods that do not work if part of the celestial sphere is never seen. In particular, the distribution of arrival directions can be fully characterized by a list of spherical harmonic coefficients. The dipole vector and quadrupole tensor are of special interest, but the full set of harmonic coefficients constitutes the anisotropy fingerprint that may be needed to reveal the identity of the cosmic ray sources. The angular power spectrum is a coordinate-independent synopsis of that fingerprint. The true cos…
We study the effect of a stochastic background of gravitational waves on the gravitational lensing of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation. It has been shown that matter density inhomogeneities produce a smoothing of the acoustic peaks in the angular power spectrum of the CMB anisotropies. A gravitational wave background gives rise to an additional smoothing of the spectrum. For the most simple case of a gravitational wave background arising during a period of inflation, the effect results to be three to four orders of magnitude smaller than its scalar counterpart, and is thus undet…
We report the discoveries of two, two-image gravitationally lensed quasars selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: SDSS J0806+2006 at z_s=1.540 and SDSS J1353+1138 at z_s=1.629 with image separations of 1.40" and 1.41" respectively. Spectroscopic and optical/near-infrared imaging follow-up observations show that the quasar images have identical redshifts and possess extended objects between the images that are likely to be lens galaxies at z_l~0.6 in SDSS J0806+2006 and z_l~0.3 in SDSS J1353+1138. The field of SDSS J0806+2006 contains several nearby galaxies that may significantly perturb …
The Cosmic Lens All-Sky Survey (CLASS) is an international collaborative program which has obtained high-resolution radio images of over 10000 flat-spectrum radio sources in order to create the largest and best studied statistical sample of radio-loud gravitationally lensed systems. With this survey, combined with detailed studies of the lenses found therein, constraints can be placed on the expansion rate, matter density, and dark energy (e.g. cosmological constant, quintessence) content of the Universe that are complementary to and independent of those obtained through other methods. CLASS i…
Motivated by the recent claim for gravitational lensing by a cosmic string, we reinvestigate the probability of finding such an event with upcoming wide-field surveys. If an observed lensing event is suspected to be due to a string, observations of the vicinity of the event in a circle of diameter L centered on the observed lens should reveal several additional lensing events. For a string located nearby (z\lesssim 0.5), we find that observations in a region of size \approx 1 arcmin^2 will see \sim 100 objects, of which \sim 5 would be lensed by the string, compared to \sim 0.1 lensed by conve…
The galaxy image pair CSL-1 has been a leading candidate for a cosmic string lens. High quality imaging data from the Hubble Space Telescope presented here show that it is not a lens but a pair of galaxies. The galaxies show different orientations of their principal axes, not consistent with any lens model. We present a new direct test of the straight-string lens model, using a displaced difference of the image from itself to exclude CSL-1 at high confidence.
The unique, conical spacetime created by cosmic strings brings about distinctive gravitational lensing phenomena. The variety of these distinctive phenomena is increased when the strings have non-trivial mutual interactions. In particular, when strings bind and create junctions, rather than intercommute, the resulting configurations can lead to novel gravitational lensing patterns. In this brief note, we use exact solutions to characterize these phenomena, the detection of which would be strong evidence for the existence of complex cosmic string networks of the kind predicted by string theory-…
If decays of superheavy relic particles in the galactic halo are responsible for ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays, these particles must be clustered to account for small-scale anisotropy in the AGASA data. We show that the masses of such clusters are large enough for them to gravitationally lens stars and galaxies in the background. We propose a general strategy that can be used to detect such clusters via gravitational lensing, or to rule out the hypothesis of decaying relic particles as the origin of highest-energy cosmic rays.
The gravitational lensing by long, wiggly cosmic strings is shown to produce a large number of lensed images of a background source. In addition to pairs of images on either side of the string, a number of small images outline the string due to small-scale structure on the string. This image pattern could provide a highly distinctive signature of cosmic strings. Since the optical depth for multiple imaging of distant quasar sources by long strings may be comparable to that by galaxies, these image patterns should be clearly observable in the next generation of redshift surveys such as the Sloa…
We show that the existence of cosmic strings can be strongly constrained by the next generation of gravitational lensing surveys at radio frequencies. We focus on cosmic string loops, which simulations suggest would be far more numerous than long (horizon-sized) strings. Using simple models of the loop population and minimal assumptions about the lensing cross section per loop, we estimate the optical depth to lensing and show that extant radio surveys such as CLASS have already ruled out a portion of the cosmic string model parameter space. Future radio interferometers, such as LOFAR and espe…
We point out that the results by Brandenberger et al. in Phys.Rev.D77:083502(2008) that the geometry around the straight cosmic strings with stationary junctions is flat to linear order in the string tension can be immediately extended to any order.
