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DESI-253.2534+26.8843: A New Einstein Cross Spectroscopically Confirmed with VLT/MUSE and Modeled with GIGA-Lens

Authors :
Cikota, Aleksandar
Bertolla, Ivonne Toro
Huang, Xiaosheng
Baltasar, Saul
Ratier-Werbin, Nicolas
Sheu, William
Storfer, Christopher
Suzuki, Nao
Schlegel, David J.
Cartier, Regis
Torres, Simon
Cikota, Stefan
Jullo, Eric
Publication Year :
2023

Abstract

Gravitational lensing provides unique insights into astrophysics and cosmology, including the determination of galaxy mass profiles and constraining cosmological parameters. We present spectroscopic confirmation and lens modeling of the strong lensing system DESI-253.2534+26.8843, discovered in the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) Legacy Imaging Surveys data. This system consists of a massive elliptical galaxy surrounded by four blue images forming an Einstein Cross pattern. We obtained spectroscopic observations of this system using the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) on ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) and confirmed its lensing nature. The main lens, which is the elliptical galaxy, has a redshift of $z_{L1} = 0.636\pm 0.001$, while the spectra of the background source images are typical of a starburst galaxy and have a redshift of $z_s = 2.597 \pm 0.001$. Additionally, we identified a faint galaxy foreground of one of the lensed images, with a redshift of $z_{L2} = 0.386$. We employed the GIGA-Lens modeling code to characterize this system and determined the Einstein radius of the main lens to be $\theta_{E} =2.520{''}_{-0.031}^{+0.032}$, which corresponds to a velocity dispersion of $\sigma$ = 379 $\pm$ 2 km s$^{-1}$. Our study contributes to a growing catalog of this rare kind of strong lensing systems and demonstrates the effectiveness of spectroscopic integral field unit observations and advanced modeling techniques in understanding the properties of these systems.<br />Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJL

Details

Database :
arXiv
Publication Type :
Report
Accession number :
edsarx.2307.12470
Document Type :
Working Paper
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ace9da