Search

We investigate the local and line-of-sight (LOS) overdensities of strong gravitational lens galaxies using wide-area multiband imaging from the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program. We present 41 new definite or probable lens candidates discovered in Data Release 2 of the survey. Using a combined sample of 87 galaxy-scale lenses out to a lens redshift of zL ∼ 0.8, we compare galaxy number counts in LOSs toward known and newly discovered lenses in the survey to those of a control sample consisting of random LOSs. We also compare the local overdensity of lens galaxies to a sample of “twin” galaxies that have similar redshift and velocity dispersion to test whether lenses lie in different environments from similar nonlens galaxies. We find that lens fields contain higher number counts of galaxies compared to the control fields, but this effect arises from the local environment of the lens. Once galaxies in the lens plane are removed, the lens LOSs are consistent with the control sample. The local environments of the lenses are overdense compared to the control sample, and are slightly overdense compared to those of the twin sample, although the significance is marginal. There is no significant evidence of the evolution of the local overdensity of lens environments with redshift. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a combined strong and weak lensing analysis of the J085007.6+360428 (J0850) field, which contains the massive cluster Zwicky 1953. This field was selected for its high projected concentration of luminous red galaxies. Using Subaru/Suprime-Cam imaging and MMT/Hectospec spectroscopy, we first perform a weak lensing shear analysis to constrain the mass distribution in this field, including the cluster at z = 0.3774 and a smaller foreground halo at z = 0.2713. We then add a strong lensing constraint from a multiply imaged galaxy in the imaging data with a photometric redshift of z ≈ 5.03. Unlike previous cluster-scale lens analyses, our technique accounts for the full three-dimensional mass structure in the beam, including galaxies along the line of sight. In contrast with past cluster analyses that used only lensed image positions as constraints, we use the full surface brightness distribution of the images. This method predicts that the source galaxy crosses a lensing caustic, such that one image is a highly magnified “fold arc” that could be used to probe the source galaxy’s structure at ultra-high spatial resolution (<30 pc). We calculate the mass of the primary cluster to be with a concentration of , consistent with the mass–concentration relation of massive clusters at a similar redshift. The large mass of this cluster makes J0850 an excellent field for leveraging lensing magnification to search for high-redshift galaxies, competitive with and complementary to that of well-studied clusters such as the HST Frontier Fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The central image of a strongly lensed background source places constraints on the foreground lens galaxy’s inner mass profile slope, core radius, and mass of its nuclear supermassive black hole. Using high-resolution long-baseline Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations and archival Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaging, we model the gravitational lens H-ATLAS J090311.6+003906 (also known as SDP.81) and search for the demagnified central image. There is central continuum emission from the lens galaxy’s active galactic nucleus (AGN) but no evidence of the central lensed image in any molecular line. We use the CO maps to determine the flux limit of the central image excluding the AGN continuum. We predict the flux density of the central image and use the limits from the ALMA data to constrain the innermost mass distribution of the lens. For a power-law profile with a core radius of 0.″15 measured from HST photometry of the lens galaxy assuming that the central flux is attributed to the AGN, we find that a black hole mass of is preferred. Deeper observations with a detection of the central image will significantly improve the constraints of the innermost mass distribution of the lens galaxy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Matter near a gravitational lens galaxy or projected along the line of sight (LOS) can affect strong lensing observables by more than contemporary measurement errors. We simulate lens fields with realistic three-dimensional mass configurations (self-consistently including voids), and then fit mock lensing observables with increasingly complex lens models to quantify biases and uncertainties associated with different ways of treating the lens environment (ENV) and LOS. We identify the combination of mass, projected offset, and redshift that determines the importance of a perturbing galaxy for lensing. Foreground structures have a stronger effect on the lens potential than background structures, due to nonlinear effects in the foreground and downweighting in the background. There is dramatic variation in the net strength of ENV/LOS effects across different lens fields; modeling fields individually yields stronger priors for H0 than ray tracing through N-body simulations. Models that ignore mass outside the lens yield poor fits and biased results. Adding external shear can account for tidal stretching from galaxies at redshifts , but it requires corrections for external convergence and cannot reproduce nonlinear effects from foreground galaxies. Using the tidal approximation is reasonable for most perturbers as long as nonlinear redshift effects are included. Even then, the scatter in H0 is limited by the lens profile degeneracy. Asymmetric image configurations produced by highly elliptical lens galaxies are less sensitive to the lens profile degeneracy, so they offer appealing targets for precision lensing analyses in future surveys like LSST and Euclid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strong gravitational lensing provides an independent measurement of the Hubble parameter (H0). One remaining systematic is a bias from the additional mass due to a galaxy group at the lens redshift or along the sightline. We quantify this bias for more than 20 strong lenses that have well-sampled sightline mass distributions, focusing on the convergence κ and shear γ. In 23% of these fields, a lens group contributes ≥1% convergence bias; in 57%, there is a similarly significant line-of-sight group. For the nine time-delay lens systems, H0 is overestimated by % on average when groups are ignored. In 67% of fields with total , line-of-sight groups contribute more convergence than do lens groups, indicating that the lens group is not the only important mass. Lens environment affects the ratio of four (quad) to two (double) image systems; all seven quads have lens groups while only 3 of 10 doubles do, and the highest convergences due to lens groups are in quads. We calibrate the γ–κ relation: with an rms scatter of 0.34 dex. Although shear can be measured directly from lensed images, unlike convergence, it can be a poor predictor of convergence; for 19% of our fields, κ is . Thus, accurate cosmology using strong gravitational lenses requires precise measurement and correction for all significant structures in each lens field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We measure the clustering of X-ray, radio, and mid-IR-selected active galactic nuclei (AGNs) at using multi-wavelength imaging and spectroscopic redshifts from the PRIMUS and DEEP2 redshift surveys, covering seven separate fields spanning ∼10 deg 2 . Using the cross-correlation of AGNs with dense galaxy samples, we measure the clustering scale length and slope, as well as the bias, of AGNs selected at different wavelengths. Similar to previous studies, we find that X-ray and radio AGNs are more clustered than mid-IR-selected AGNs. We further compare the clustering of each AGN sample with matched galaxy samples designed to have the same stellar mass, star-formation rate (SFR), and redshift distributions as the AGN host galaxies and find no significant differences between their clustering properties. The observed differences in the clustering of AGNs selected at different wavelengths can therefore be explained by the clustering differences of their host populations, which have different distributions in both stellar mass and SFR. Selection biases inherent in AGN selection therefore determine the clustering of observed AGN samples. We further find no significant difference between the clustering of obscured and unobscured AGNs, using IRAC or Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer colors or X-ray hardness ratio. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the evidence for a connection between active galactic nuclei (AGNs) fueling and star formation by investigating the relationship between the X-ray luminosities of AGNs and the star formation rates (SFRs) of their host galaxies. We identify a sample of 309 AGNs with erg s−1 at in the PRIMUS redshift survey. We find AGNs in galaxies with a wide range of SFR at a given LX. We do not find a significant correlation between SFR and the observed instantaneous LX for star-forming AGN host galaxies. However, there is a weak but significant correlation between the mean LX and SFR of detected AGNs in star-forming galaxies, which likely reflects that LX varies on shorter timescales than SFR. We find no correlation between stellar mass and LX within the AGN population. Within both populations of star-forming and quiescent galaxies, we find a similar power-law distribution in the probability of hosting an AGN as a function of specific accretion rate. Furthermore, at a given stellar mass, we find a star-forming galaxy ∼2–3 more likely than a quiescent galaxy to host an AGN of a given specific accretion rate. The probability of a galaxy hosting an AGN is constant across the main sequence of star formation. These results indicate that there is an underlying connection between star formation and the presence of AGNs, but AGNs are often hosted by quiescent galaxies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the effects of galaxy environment on the evolution of the quiescent fraction () from to 0.0 using spectroscopic redshifts and multi-wavelength imaging data from the PRIsm MUlti-object Survey (PRIMUS) and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Our stellar mass limited galaxy sample consists of ∼14,000 PRIMUS galaxies within z = 0.2–0.8 and ∼64,000 SDSS galaxies within z = 0.05–0.12. We classify the galaxies as quiescent or star-forming (SF) based on an evolving specific star formation cut, and as low or high density environments based on fixed cylindrical aperture environment measurements on a volume-limited environment defining population. For quiescent and SF galaxies in low or high density environments, we examine the evolution of their stellar mass function (SMF). Then using the SMFs we compute and quantify its evolution within our redshift range. We find that the quiescent fraction is higher at higher masses and in denser environments. The quiescent fraction rises with cosmic time for all masses and environments. At a fiducial mass of , from to 0.1, the quiescent fraction rises by 15% at the lowest environments and by 25% at the highest environments we measure. These results suggest that for a minority of galaxies their cessation of star formation is due to external influences on them. In other words, in the recent universe a substantial fraction of the galaxies that cease forming stars do so due to internal processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]