Discovery of a New Quadruple Lens HST 1411+5211

Abstract

Gravitational lensing is an important tool for probing the mass distribution of galaxies. In this Letter, we report the discovery of a new quadruple lens HST 1411+5211 found in archived Wide-Field Planetary Camera 2 images of the galaxy cluster CL 140933+5226. If the galaxy is a cluster member, then its redshift is z=0.46. The images of the source appear unresolved in the Wide-Field Camera, implying that the source is a quasar. We have modeled the lens as both a single galaxy and a galaxy plus a cluster. The latter model yields excellent fits to the image positions along with reasonable parameters for the galaxy and cluster, making HST 1411+5211 a likely gravitational lens. Determination of the source redshift and confirmation of the lens redshift would allow us to put strong constraints on the mass distribution of the lensing galaxy.

Based on observations with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope obtained at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555.

This work used the facilities of the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre, operated by the National Research Council, Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics, Dominion Astrophysical Observatory, and partially funded by the Canadian Space Agency.