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Register a new userGaia GraL: Gaia DR2 Gravitational Lens Systems. III. A systematic blind search for new lensed systems
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Added by
Ludovic Delchambre Dr.
Publication date
2018
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
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Aims: In this work, we aim to provide a reliable list of gravitational lens (GL) candidates based on a search performed over the entire Gaia Data Release 2 (Gaia DR2). We also show that the sole astrometric and photometric informations coming from the Gaia satellite yield sufficient insights for supervised learning methods to automatically identify GL candidates with an efficiency that is comparable to methods based on image processing. Methods: We simulated 106,623,188 lens systems composed of more than two images, based on a regular grid of parameters characterizing a non-singular isothermal ellipsoid lens model in the presence of an external shear. These simulations are used as an input for training and testing our supervised learning models consisting of Extremely Randomized Trees. The latter are finally used to assign to each of the 2,129,659 clusters of celestial objects a discriminant value that reflects the ability of our simulations to match the observed relative positions and fluxes from each cluster. Once complemented with additional constraints, these discriminant values allowed us to identify GL candidates out of the list of clusters. Results: We report the discovery of 15 new quadruply-imaged lens candidates with angular separations less than 6 and assess the performance of our approach by recovering 12 out of the 13 known quadruply-imaged systems with all their components detected in Gaia DR2 with a misclassification rate of fortuitous clusters of stars as lens systems that is below one percent. Similarly, the identification capability of our method regarding quadruply-imaged systems where three images are detected in Gaia DR2 is assessed by recovering 10 out of the 13 known quadruply-imaged systems having one of their constituting images discarded. The associated misclassification rate varying then between 5.8% and 20%, depending on the image we decided to remove.
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Context. Strong gravitationally lensed quasars are among the most interesting and useful observable extragalactic phenomena. Because their study constitutes a unique tool in various fields of astronomy, they are highly sought, not without difficulty. Indeed, even in this era of all-sky surveys, their recognition remains a great challenge, with barely a few hundred currently known systems. Aims. In this work we aim to detect new strongly lensed quasar candidates in the recently published Gaia Data Release 2 (DR2), which is the highest spatial resolution astrometric and photometric all-sky survey, attaining effective resolutions from 0.4 to 2.2. Methods. We cross-matched a merged list of quasars and candidates with the Gaia DR2 and found 1,839,143 counterparts within 0.5. We then searched matches with more than two Gaia DR2 counterparts within 6. We further narrowed the resulting list using astrometry and photometry compatibility criteria between the Gaia DR2 counterparts. A supervised machine learning method, Extremely Randomized Trees, is finally adopted to assign to each remaining system a probability of being lensed. Results. We report the discovery of three quadruply-imaged quasar candidates that are fully detected in Gaia DR2. These are the most promising new quasar lens candidates from Gaia DR2 and a simple singular isothermal ellipsoid lens model is able to reproduce their image positions to within $sim$1 mas. This letter demonstrates the gravitational lens discovery potential of Gaia.
Combining the exquisite angular resolution of Gaia with optical light curves and WISE photometry, the Gaia Gravitational Lenses group (GraL) uses machine learning techniques to identify candidate strongly lensed quasars, and has confirmed over two dozen new strongly lensed quasars from the Gaia Data Release 2. This paper reports on the 12 quadruply-imaged quasars identified by this effort to date, which is approximately a 20% increase in the total number of confirmed quadruply-imaged quasars. We discuss the candidate selection, spectroscopic follow-up, and lens modeling. We also report our spectroscopic failures as an aid for future investigations.
The discovery of multiply-imaged gravitationally lensed QSOs is fundamental to many astronomical and cosmological studies. However, these objects are rare and challenging to discover due to requirements of high-angular resolution astrometric, multiwavelength photometric and spectroscopic data. This has limited the number of known systems to a few hundred objects. We aim to reduce the constraints on angular resolution and discover multiply-imaged QSO candidates by using new candidate selection principles based on unresolved photometric time-series and ground-based images from public surveys. We selected candidates for multiply-imaged QSOs based on low levels of entropy computed from Catalina unresolved photometric time-series or Euclidean similarity to known lenses in a space defined by the wavelet power spectra of Pan-STARSS DR2 or DECaLS DR7 images, combined with multiple {it Gaia} DR2 sources or large astrometric errors and supervised and unsupervised learning methods. We then confirmed spectroscopically some candidates with the Palomar Hale, Keck-I, and ESO/NTT telescopes. Here we report the discovery and confirmation of seven doubly-imaged QSOs and one likely double quasar. This demonstrates the potential of combining space-astrometry, even if unresolved, with low spatial-resolution photometric time-series and/or low-spatial resolution multi-band imaging to discover multiply-imaged lensed QSOs.
We present ten new ultra-cool dwarfs in seven wide binary systems discovered using $textit{Gaia}$ DR2 data, identified as part of our $textit{Gaia}$ Ultra-Cool Dwarf Sample project. The seven systems presented here include an L1 companion to the G5 IV star HD 164507, an L1: companion to the V478 Lyr AB system, an L2 companion to the metal-poor K5 V star CD-28 8692, an M9 V companion to the young variable K0 V star LT UMa, and three low-mass binaries consisting of late Ms and early Ls. The HD 164507, CD-28 8692, V478 Lyr, and LT UMa systems are particularly important benchmarks, because the primaries are well characterised and offer excellent constraints on the atmospheric parameters and ages of the companions. We find that the M8 V star 2MASS J23253550+4608163 is $sim$2.5 mag overluminous compared to M dwarfs of similar spectral type, but at the same time it does not exhibit obvious peculiarities in its near-infrared spectrum. Its overluminosity cannot be explained by unresolved binarity alone. Finally, we present an L1+L2 system with a projected physical separation of 959 au, making this the widest L+L binary currently known.
We reprise the analysis of Stassun & Torres (2016), comparing the parallaxes of the eclipsing binaries reported in that paper to the parallaxes newly reported in the Gaia second data release (DR2). We find evidence for a systematic offset of $-82 pm 33$ micro-arcseconds, in the sense of the Gaia parallaxes being too small, for brightnesses $(G lesssim 12)$ and for distances (0.03--3 kpc) in the ranges spanned by the eclipsing binary sample. The offset does not appear to depend strongly on distance within this range, though there is marginal evidence that the offset increases (becomes slightly more negative) for distances $gtrsim 1$ kpc, up to the 3 kpc distances probed by the test sample. The offset reported here is consistent with the expectation that global systematics in the Gaia DR2 parallaxes are below 100 micro-arcseconds.
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