The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Lens Search. II. Statistical Lens Sample from the Third Data Release

Citation:

Inada N, Oguri M, Becker RH, Shin M-S, Richards GT, Hennawi JF, White RL, Pindor B, Strauss MA, Kochanek CS. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Lens Search. II. Statistical Lens Sample from the Third Data Release. The Astronomical Journal [Internet]. 2008;135:496-511.

Abstract:

We report the first results of our systematic search for strongly lensedquasars using the spectroscopically confirmed quasars in the SloanDigital Sky Survey (SDSS). Among 46,420 quasars from the SDSS DataRelease 3 (~4188 deg2), we select a subsample of 22,683quasars that are located at redshifts between 0.6 and 2.2 and arebrighter than the Galactic extinction-corrected i-band magnitude of19.1. We identify 220 lens candidates from the quasar subsample, forwhich we conduct extensive and systematic follow-up observations inoptical and near-infrared wavebands, in order to construct a completelensed quasar sample at image separations between 1'' and 20'' and fluxratios of faint to bright lensed images larger than 10-0.5.We construct a statistical sample of 11 lensed quasars. Ten of these aregalaxy-scale lenses with small image separations (~ 1''-2'') and one isa large separation (15'') system which is produced by a massive clusterof galaxies, representing the first statistical sample of lensed quasarsincluding both galaxy- and cluster-scale lenses. The Data Release 3spectroscopic quasars contain an additional 11 lensed quasars outsidethe statistical sample.

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