Bibcode
DOI
Rusin, D.; Kochanek, C. S.; Norbury, M.; Falco, E. E.; Impey, C. D.; Lehár, J.; McLeod, B. A.; Rix, H.-W.; Keeton, C. R.; Muñoz, J. A.; Peng, C. Y.
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 557, Issue 2, pp. 594-604.
Advertised on:
8
2001
Journal
Citations
58
Refereed citations
50
Description
Hubble Space Telescope (HST) V- and I-band observations show that the
gravitational lens B1359+154 consists of six images of a single
zs=3.235 radio source and its star-forming host galaxy,
produced by a compact group of galaxies at zl~=1. Very Long
Baseline Array (VLBA) observations at 1.7 GHz strongly support this
conclusion, showing six compact cores with similar low-frequency radio
spectra. B1359+154 is the first example of galaxy-scale gravitational
lensing in which more than four images are observed of the same
background source. The configuration is due to the unique lensing mass
distribution: three primary lens galaxies lying on the vertices of a
triangle separated by 0.7"~=4 h-1 kpc, inside the 1.7"
diameter Einstein ring defined by the radio images. The gravitational
potential has additional extrema within this triangle, creating a pair
of central images that supplement the ``standard'' four-image geometry
of the outer components. Simple mass models, consisting of three lens
galaxies constrained by HST and VLBA astrometry, naturally reproduce the
observed image positions but must be finely tuned to fit the flux
densities. Based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space
Telescope, obtained at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is
operated by AURA, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555.