Citation:
Date Published:
January 1, 2006Abstract:
We report follow-up observations of two gravitational lens candidatesidentified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data set. We haveconfirmed that SDSS J102111.02+491330.4 is a previously unknowngravitationally lensed quasar. This lens system exhibits two images of az=1.72 quasar, with an image separation of 1.14"+/-0.04". Optical andnear-IR imaging of the system reveals the presence of the lensing galaxybetween the two quasar images. Observations of SDSS J112012.12+671116.0indicate that it is more likely a binary quasar than a gravitationallens. This system has two quasars at a redshift of z=1.49, with anangular separation of 1.49"+/-0.02". However, the two quasars havemarkedly different spectral energy distributions, and no lens galaxy isapparent in optical and near-IR images of this system. We also present alist of 31 SDSS lens candidates that follow-up observations haveconfirmed are not gravitational lenses.Observations reported here were obtained at the MMT Observatory, a jointfacility of the University of Arizona and the Smithsonian Institution.