No Arabic abstract
We present polarisation observations of the gravitational lens system B1422+231 made at 8.4 GHz using the VLBA and the 100m telescope at Effelsberg. All four images of the quasar show structure on the milliarcsec scale. The three bright images show tangential stretching as expected from lens models. Some basic properties of gravitational lensing are exhibited by this system. The surface brightness of images A and B are the same and the parity reversal expected in image B is revealed, for the first time, by polarisation observations. There is a large differential Faraday rotation between images A and B.
In the gravitational lens system B1600+434 the brighter image, A, is known to show rapid variability which is not detected in the weaker image, B (Koopmans & de Bruyn 2000). Since correlated variability is one of the fundamental properties of gravitational lensing, it has been proposed that image A is microlensed by stars in the halo of the lensing galaxy (Koopmans & de Bruyn 2000). We present VLBA observations of B1600+434 at 15 GHz with a resolution of 0.5 milliarcsec to determine the source structure at high spatial resolution. The surface brightness of the images are significantly different, with image A being more compact. This is in apparent contradiction with the required property of gravitational lensing that surface brightness be preserved. Our results suggest that both the lensed images may show two-sided elongation at this resolution, a morphology which does not necessarily favour superluminal motion. Instead these data may suggest that image B is scatter-broadened at the lens so that its size is larger than that of A, and hence scintillates less than image A.
We present wide-field images of the quadruple gravitational lenses B1422+231 and MGJ0414+0534 obtained from global Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) observations at 8.4 GHz on 23 November 1997. We present also a lens model for MGJ0414+0534, which reproduces the core positions and flux densities of the VLBI images, combining a singular isothermal ellipsoid with external shear, and a singular isothermal sphere to represent, respectively, the main lens galaxy and its neighbor, a faint galaxy near one of the images.
We present new spectroscopy of the z=3.62 gravitationally lensed quasar B1422+117 from the Gemini North GMOS integral field spectrograph. We observe significant differential magnifications between the broad emission lines and the continuum, as well as across the velocity structure of the Lyman-alpha line. We take advantage of this differential microlensing to algebraically decompose the quasar spectrum into the absorbed broad emission line and absorbed continuum components. We use the latter to derive the intrinsic Ly-alpha forest absorption spectrum. The proximity effect is clearly detected, with a proximity zone edge of 8.6-17.3 Mpc from the quasar, implying (perhaps intermittent) activity over at least 28 Myrs. The Ly-alpha line profile exhibits a blue excess that is inconsistent with a symmetric fit to the unabsorbed red side. This has important implications for the use of this fitting technique in estimating the absorbed blue Ly-alpha wings of Gunn-Peterson trough quasars.
In this work we investigate the gravitationally lensed system B1422+231. High--quality VLBI image positions, fluxes and shapes as well as an optical HST lens galaxy position are used. First, two simple and smooth models for the lens galaxy are applied to fit observed image positions and fluxes; no even remotely acceptable model was found. Such models also do not accurately reproduce the image shapes. In order to fit the data successfully, mass substructure has to be added to the lens, and its level is estimated. To explore expectations about the level of substructure in galaxies and its influence on strong lensing, N-body simulation results of a model galaxy are employed. By using the mass distribution of this model galaxy as a lens, synthetic data sets of different four image system configurations are generated and simple lens models are again applied to fit them. The difficulties in fitting these lens systems turn out to be similar to the case of some real gravitationally lensed systems, thus possibly providing evidence for the presence and strong influence of substructure in the primary lens galaxy.
We present multi-frequency VLA polarisation observations of nine gravitational lenses. The aim of these observations was to determine Faraday rotation measures (RM) for the individual lensed images, and to measure their continuum spectra over a wide range of frequencies.