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Register a new userRedshifted formaldehyde from the gravitational lens B0218+357
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The gravitational lens toward B0218+357 offers the unique possibility to study cool moderately dense gas with high sensitivity and angular resolution in a cloud that existed half a Hubble time ago. Observations of the radio continuum and six formaldehyde (H2CO) lines were carried out with the VLA, the Plateau de Bure interferometer, and the Effelsberg 100-m telescope. Three radio continuum maps indicate a flux density ratio between the two main images, A and B, of ~ 3.4 +/- 0.2. Within the errors the ratio is the same at 8.6, 14.1, and 43 GHz. The 1_{01}-0_{00} line of para-H2CO is shown to absorb the continuum of image A. Large Velocity Gradient radiative transfer calculations are performed to reproduce the optical depths of the observed two cm-wave K-doublet and four mm-wave rotational lines. These calculations also account for a likely frequency-dependent continuum cloud coverage. Confirming the diffuse nature of the cloud, an n(H2) density of < 1000 cm^{-3} is derived, with the best fit suggesting n(H2) ~ 200 cm^{-3}. The H2CO column density of the main velocity component is ~5 * 10^{13} cm^{-2}, to which about 7.5 * 10^{12} cm^{-2} has to be added to also account for a weaker feature on the blue side, 13 km/s apart. N(H2CO)/N(NH3) ~ 0.6, which is four times less than the average ratio obtained from a small number of local diffuse (galactic) clouds seen in absorption. The ortho-to-para H2CO abundance ratio is 2.0 - 3.0, which is consistent with the kinetic temperature of the molecular gas associated with the lens of B0218+357. With the gas kinetic temperature and density known, it is found that optically thin transitions of CS, HCN, HNC, HCO+, and N2H+ (but not CO) will provide excellent probes of the cosmic microwave background at redshift z=0.68.
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We address the issue of anomalous image flux ratios seen in the double-image gravitational lens JVAS B0218+357. From the multi-frequency observations presented in a recent study (Mittal et al. 2006) and several previous observations made by other authors, the anomaly is well-established in that the image flux-density ratio (A/B) decreases from 3.9 to 2.0 over the observed frequency range from 15 GHz to 1.65 GHz. In Mittal et al. (2006), the authors investigated whether an interplay between a frequency-dependent structure of the background radio-source and a gradient in the relative image-magnification can explain away the anomaly. Insufficient shifts in the image centroids with frequency led them to discard the above effect as the cause of the anomaly. In this paper, we first take this analysis further by evaluating the combined effect of the background source extension and magnification gradients in the lens plane in more detail. This is done by making a direct use of the observed VLBI flux-distributions for each image to estimate the image flux-density ratios at different frequencies from a lens-model. As a result of this investigation, this mechanism does not account for the anomaly. Following this, we analyze the effects of mechanisms which are non-gravitational in nature on the image flux ratios in B0218+357. These are free-free absorption and scattering, and are assumed to occur under the hypothesis of a molecular cloud residing in the lens galaxy along the line-of-sight to image A. We show that free-free absorption due to an H II region covering the entire structure of image A at 1.65 GHz can explain the image flux ratio anomaly. We also discuss whether H II regions with physical parameters as derived from our analysis are consistent with those observed in Galactic and extragalactic H II regions.
We present the results of phase-referenced VLBA+Effelsberg observations at five frequencies of the gravitational lens B0218+357 to establish the precise registration of the A and B lensed image positions.
We present multi-frequency radio continuum VLBI observations of the gravitational lens system B0218+357 carried out using a global VLBI network and the VLBA. The source has been observed with resolutions from 0.2 milliarcsec to 5 milliarcsec and displays interesting structure. The spectral properties of various components show that the lensed object is a standard flat spectrum radio source which has many self-absorbed components. Based on the flux ratio of the lensed images as a function of frequency we propose a simple model for the background radio source.
We present the results of phase-referenced VLBA+Effelsberg observations at five frequencies of the double-image gravitational lens JVAS B0218+357, made to establish the precise registration of the A and B lensed image positions. The motivation behind these observations is to investigate the anomalous variation of the image flux density ratio (A/B) with frequency - this ratio changes by almost a factor of two over a frequency range from 1.65 GHz to 15.35 GHz. We investigate whether frequency dependent image positions, combined with a magnification gradient across the image field, could give rise to the anomaly. Our observations confirm the variation of image flux ratio with frequency. The results from our phase-reference astrometry, taken together with the lens mass model of Wucknitz et al. (2004), show that shifts of the image peaks and centroids are too small to account for the observed frequency-dependent ratio.
We present deep optical observations of the gravitational lens system CLASS B0218+357, from which we derive an estimate of the Hubble constant. Extensive radio observations have reduced the degeneracies between Hubbles constant and the mass model in this lens to one involving only the position of the radio-quiet lensing galaxy relative to the lensed images. B0218+357 has an image separation of only 334 mas, so optical observations have previously been unable to resolve the lens galaxy from the bright lensed images. Using the new Advanced Camera for Surveys installed on the Hubble Space Telescope, we have measured the separation between the lens galaxy centre and the brightest image. The position found, and hence our estimate of Hubbles constant, depends on our approach to the spiral arms in B0218+357. If the most prominent arms are left unmasked, we find a value for Hubbles constant of 70+/-5 km/s /Mpc (95% confidence). If the spiral arms are masked out, we find a value of 61+/-7 km/s /Mpc (95% confidence).
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