Search

Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) are objects located in the heart of galaxies which emit powerful and complex radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum. Understanding AGN has become a topic of interest due to their importance in galactic evolution and their ability to act as a probe to the distant Universe. Within the next few years, wide-field surveys such as the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) at the Rubin Vera Observatory are expected to increase the number of known AGN to $\mathcal{O} (10^{7})$ and the number of strongly lensed AGN to $\mathcal{O} (10^{4})$. In this paper we introduce \texttt{Amoeba}: an AGN Model of Optical Emission Beyond steady-state Accretion discs. The goal of \texttt{Amoeba} is to provide a modular and flexible modelling environment for AGN, in which all components can interact with each other. Through this work we describe the framework for major AGN components to vary self-consistently and keep flux distributions to connect these components to spatial dependent processes. We model properties beyond traditional single-component models, such as the reverberation of the corona's bending power law power spectrum through the accretion disc and broad line region (BLR). We simulate obscuration by the dusty torus and differential magnification of the disc and BLR due to microlensing. These features are joined together to create some of the most realistic light curve simulations to date. \texttt{Amoeba} takes a step forward in AGN modelling by joining the accretion disc, BLR, torus, intrinsic signal, and microlensing into a coherent model.

We report the discovery of new lensed quasar candidates in the imaging data of the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program (HSC-SSP) DR4, covering $1\,310~{\rm deg}^2$ of the sky with seeing of $\approx0.6''$. In addition to two catalogs of MILLIQUAS and AllWISEAGN, which contain confirmed and candidate quasars, we preselect quasar sources using color cuts from the HSC ($grizy$) and unWISE ($W1+W2$) photometric data based on SDSS spectroscopic catalogs. We search for the presence of multiple point sources with similar color through the convolution of the Laplacian of the preselected quasar image cutouts with the Laplacian of the point spread function, resulting in a reduction of lens candidates from $1\,652\,329$ to $121\,511$ ($7.4\%$). After visual binary classification, we grade $6\,199$ ($0.4\%$) potential lenses on a scale of 0 to 3, with 3 indicating a lens and 0 indicating a non-lens. Finally we obtain 162 lens candidates with an average grade of $\geq2$, and among them, we successfully recover 18 known lenses. By fitting the light distribution and removing the known contaminants, we discover that 57 new systems contain at least two point sources and a galaxy in between, including 10 possible quadruply lensed quasars. This new sample of lens candidates exhibits a median separation of $1.26''$ and a magnitude limit of $i\approx22$. Spectroscopic or high-resolution imaging follow up on these newly discovered lensed quasar candidates will further allow their natures to be confirmed., Comment: 25 pages, 14 figures

The microlensing signal in the light curves of gravitationally lensed quasars can shed light on the dark matter (DM) composition in their lensing galaxies. Here, we investigate a sample of six lensed quasars from the most recent and best COSMOGRAIL observations: HE~1104$-$1805, HE~0435$-$1223, RX~J1131$-$1231, WFI~2033$-$4723, PG~1115$+$080, and J1206$+$4332, yielding a total of eight microlensing light curves, when combining independent image pairs and typically spanning ten years. We explore the microlensing signals to determine whether the standard assumptions on the stellar populations are sufficient to account for the amplitudes of the measured signals. We use the most detailed lens models to date from the H0LiCOW/TDCOSMO collaboration to generate simulated microlensing light curves. Finally, we propose a methodology based on the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test to verify whether the observed microlensing amplitudes in our data are compatible with the most standard scenario, whereby galaxies are composed of stars as compact bodies and smoothly distributed DM. Given our current sample, we show that the standard scenario cannot be rejected, in contrast with previous results by Hawkins (2020a), claiming that a population of stellar mass primordial black holes (PBHs) is necessary to explain the amplitude of the microlensing signals in lensed quasar light curves. We further estimate the number of microlensing light curves needed to distinguish between the standard scenario with stellar microlensing and a scenario that describes all the DM contained in galaxies in the form of compact objects such as PBHs, with a mean mass of $0.2M_{\odot}$. We find that about 900 microlensing curves from the Rubin Observatory will be sufficient to discriminate between the two extreme scenarios at a 95\% confidence level.

We investigate the ability of human 'expert' classifiers to identify strong gravitational lens candidates in Dark Energy Survey like imaging. We recruited a total of 55 people that completed more than 25$\%$ of the project. During the classification task, we present to the participants 1489 images. The sample contains a variety of data including lens simulations, real lenses, non-lens examples, and unlabeled data. We find that experts are extremely good at finding bright, well-resolved Einstein rings, whilst arcs with $g$-band signal-to-noise less than $\sim$25 or Einstein radii less than $\sim$1.2 times the seeing are rarely recovered. Very few non-lenses are scored highly. There is substantial variation in the performance of individual classifiers, but they do not appear to depend on the classifier's experience, confidence or academic position. These variations can be mitigated with a team of 6 or more independent classifiers. Our results give confidence that humans are a reliable pruning step for lens candidates, providing pure and quantifiably complete samples for follow-up studies., Comment: 16 pages, 20 Figures

We conduct a search for galaxy-scale strong gravitational lens systems in Data Release 4 of the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program (HSC SSP), consisting of data taken up to the S21A semester. We select 103191 luminous red galaxies from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) sample that have deep multiband imaging from the HSC SSP and use the YattaLens algorithm to automatically identify lens candidates with blue arc-like features. The candidates are visually inspected and graded based on their likelihood of being a lens. We find 8 definite lenses, 28 probable lenses, and 138 possible lenses. The new lens candidates generally have lens redshifts in the range $0.3 \lesssim z_{\mathrm{L}} \lesssim 0.9$, a key intermediate redshift range to study the evolution of galaxy structure. Follow-up spectroscopy will confirm these new lenses and measure source redshifts to enable detailed lens modeling., Comment: Accepted for publication in PASJ; 12 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables

We present a lensed quasar search based on the variability of lens systems in the HSC transient survey. Starting from 101,353 variable objects with i-band photometry in the HSC transient survey, we used a variability-based lens search method measuring the spatial extent in difference images to select potential lensed quasar candidates. We adopted conservative constraints in this variability selection and obtained 83,657 variable objects as possible lens candidates. We then ran CHITAH, a lens search algorithm based on the image configuration, on those 83,657 variable objects, and 2,130 variable objects were identified as potential lensed objects. We visually inspected the 2,130 variable objects, and seven of them are our final lensed quasar candidates. Additionally, we found one lensed galaxy candidate as a serendipitous discovery. Among the eight final lensed candidates, one is the only known quadruply lensed quasar in the survey field, HSCJ095921+020638. None of the other seven lensed candidates have been previously classified as a lens nor a lensed candidate. Three of the five final candidates with available HST images, including HSCJ095921+020638, show clues of a lensed feature in the HST images. A tightening of variability selection criteria might result in the loss of possible lensed quasar candidates, especially the lensed quasars with faint brightness or narrow separation, without efficiently eliminating the non-lensed objects; CHITAH is therefore important as an advanced examination to improve the lens search efficiency through the object configuration. The recovery of HSCJ095921+020638 proves the effectiveness of the variability-based lens search method, and this lens search method can be used in other cadenced imaging surveys, such as the upcoming Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time., Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in A&A

We present spectroscopic confirmation of three new two-image gravitationally lensed quasars, compiled from existing strong lens and X-ray catalogs. Images of HSC J091843.27$-$022007.5 show a red galaxy with two blue point sources at either side, separated by 2.26 arcsec. This system has a source and a lens redshifts $z_s=0.804$ and $z_{\ell}=0.459$, respectively, as obtained by our follow-up spectroscopic data. CXCO J100201.50$+$020330.0 shows two point sources separated by 0.85 arcsec on either side of an early-type galaxy. The follow-up spectroscopic data confirm the fainter quasar has the same redshift with the brighter quasar from the SDSS fiber spectrum at $z_s=2.016$. The deflecting foreground galaxy is a typical early-type galaxy at a redshift of $z_{\ell}=0.439$. SDSS J135944.21$+$012809.8 has two point sources with quasar spectra at the same redshift $z_s=1.096$, separated by 1.05 arcsec, and fits to the HSC images confirm the presence of a galaxy between these. These discoveries demonstrate the power of the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program (HSC-SSP)'s deep imaging and wide sky coverage. Combined with existing X-ray source catalogues and follow-up spectroscopy, the HSC-SSP provides us unique opportunities to find multiple-image quasars lensed by a foreground galaxy., Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS, 7 pages, 3 figures (add credit to Claude Cornen)

Strong lenses are extremely useful probes of the distribution of matter on galaxy and cluster scales at cosmological distances, but are rare and difficult to find. The number of currently known lenses is on the order of 1,000. We wish to use crowdsourcing to carry out a lens search targeting massive galaxies selected from over 442 square degrees of photometric data from the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) survey. We selected a sample of $\sim300,000$ galaxies with photometric redshifts in the range $0.2 < z_{phot} < 1.2$ and photometrically inferred stellar masses $\log{M_*} > 11.2$. We crowdsourced lens finding on this sample of galaxies on the Zooniverse platform, as part of the Space Warps project. The sample was complemented by a large set of simulated lenses and visually selected non-lenses, for training purposes. Nearly 6,000 citizen volunteers participated in the experiment. In parallel, we used YattaLens, an automated lens finding algorithm, to look for lenses in the same sample of galaxies. Based on a statistical analysis of classification data from the volunteers, we selected a sample of the most promising $\sim1,500$ candidates which we then visually inspected: half of them turned out to be possible (grade C) lenses or better. Including lenses found by YattaLens or serendipitously noticed in the discussion section of the Space Warps website, we were able to find 14 definite lenses, 129 probable lenses and 581 possible lenses. YattaLens found half the number of lenses discovered via crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing is able to produce samples of lens candidates with high completeness and purity, compared to currently available automated algorithms. A hybrid approach, in which the visual inspection of samples of lens candidates pre-selected by discovery algorithms and/or coupled to machine learning is crowdsourced, will be a viable option for lens finding in the 2020s., Comment: Published version

Extremely light bosonic wave dark matter ($\psi$DM) is an emerging dark matter candidate contesting the conventional cold dark matter paradigm and a model subject to intense scrutiny of late. This work for the first time reports testable salient features pertinent to gravitational lenses of $\psi$DM halos. $\psi$DM halos are distinctly filled with large-amplitude, small-scale density fluctuations with $\delta\rho/\rho_{\rm halo}\sim 1$ in form of density granules. This halo yields ubiquitous flux ratio anomalies of a few tens of percent, as is typically found for lensed quasars, and may also produce rare hexad and octad images, for sources located in well-defined caustic zones. We have found new critical features appearing in the highly de-magnified lens center when the halo has sufficiently high surface density near a very compact massive core., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures

We report the largest sample of candidate strong gravitational lenses belonging to the Survey of Gravitationally-lensed Objects in HSC Imaging for group-to-cluster scale (SuGOHI-c) systems. These candidates are compiled from the S18A data release of the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program (HSC-SSP) Survey. We visually inspect $\sim39,500$ galaxy clusters, selected from several catalogs, overlapping with the Wide, Deep, and UltraDeep fields, spanning the cluster redshift range $0.05

Strong gravitationally lensed quasars provide powerful means to study galaxy evolution and cosmology. We use Chitah to hunt for new lens systems in the Hyper Suprime$-$Cam Subaru Strategic Program (HSC SSP) S16A. We present 46 lens candidates, of which 3 are previously known. Including 2 additional lenses found by YattaLens, we obtain X-shooter spectra of 6 promising candidates for lens confirmation and redshift measurements. We report new spectroscopic redshift measurements for both the lens and source galaxies in 4 lens systems. We apply the lens modeling software Glee to model our 6 X-shooter lenses uniformly. Through our analysis of the HSC images, we find that HSCJ022622$-$042522, HSCJ115252$+$004733, and HSCJ141136$-$010216 have point-like lensed images, and that the lens light distribution is well aligned with mass distribution within 6 deg. Thanks to the X-shooter spectra, we estimate fluxes on the Baldwin- Phillips-Terlevich (BPT) diagram, and find that HSCJ022622$-$042522 has a probable quasar source, based on the upper limit of the Nii flux intensity. We also measure the FWHM of Ly$\alpha$ emission of HSCJ141136$-$010216 to be $\sim$254 km/s, showing that it is a probable Lyman-$\alpha$ emitter., Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures

Gravitationally lensed quasars are useful for studying astrophysics and cosmology, and enlarging the sample size of lensed quasars is important for multiple studies. In this work, we develop a lens search algorithm for four-image (quad) lensed quasars based on their time variability. In the development of the lens search algorithm, we constructed a pipeline simulating multi-epoch images of lensed quasars in cadenced surveys, accounting for quasar variabilities, quasar hosts, lens galaxies, and the PSF variation. Applying the simulation pipeline to the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) transient survey, we generated HSC-like difference images of the mock lensed quasars from Oguri & Marshall's lens catalog. We further developed a lens search algorithm that picks out variable objects as lensed quasar candidates based on their spatial extent in the difference images. We tested our lens search algorithm with the mock lensed quasars and variable objects from the HSC transient survey. Using difference images from multiple epochs, our lens search algorithm achieves a high true-positive rate (TPR) of 90.1% and a low false-positive rate (FPR) of 2.3% for the bright quads with wide separation. With a preselection of the number of blobs in the difference image, we obtain a TPR of 97.6% and a FPR of 2.6% for the bright quads with wide separation. Even when difference images are only available in one single epoch, our lens search algorithm can still detect the bright quads with wide separation at high TPR of 97.6% and low FPR of 2.4% in the optimal seeing scenario, and at TPR of $\sim94%$ and FPR of $\sim5%$ in typical scenarios. Therefore, our lens search algorithm is promising and is applicable to ongoing and upcoming cadenced surveys, particularly the HSC transient survey and the Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time, for finding new lensed quasar systems. [abridged], Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures

We report the serendipitous discovery of HSC J0904$-$0102, a quadruply-lensed Lyman break galaxy (LBG) in the Survey of Gravitationally-lensed Objects in Hyper Suprime-Cam Imaging (SuGOHI). Owing to its point-like appearance, the source was thought to be a lensed active galactic nucleus. We obtained follow-up spectroscopic data with the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrographs on the Gemini South Telescope, which confirmed this to be a lens system. The deflecting foreground galaxy is a typical early-type galaxy at a high redshift of $z_{\ell} = 0.957$ with stellar velocity dispersion $\sigma_v=259\pm56$ km~s$^{-1}$. The lensed source is identified as an LBG at $z_{\rm s} = 3.403$, based on the sharp drop bluewards of Ly$\alpha$ and other absorption features. A simple lens mass model for the system, assuming a singular isothermal ellipsoid, yields an Einstein radius of $\theta_{\rm Ein} = 1. 23^{\prime\prime}$ and a total mass within the Einstein radius of $M_{\rm Ein} = (5.55\pm 0.24) \times 10^{11}M_{\odot}$ corresponding to a velocity dispersion of $\sigma_{\rm SIE}= 283\pm 3$ km~s$^{-1}$, which is in good agreement with the value derived spectroscopically. The most isolated lensed LBG image has a magnification of $\sim 6.5$. In comparison with other lensed LBGs and typical $z\sim4$ LBG populations, HSC J0904$-$0102 is unusually compact, an outlier at $>2\sigma$ confidence. Together with a previously discovered SuGOHI lens, HSC J1152$+$0047, that is similarly compact, we believe that the HSC Survey is extending LBG studies down to smaller galaxy sizes., Comment: Accepted for publication on MNRAS, 10 pages, 6 figures

We present a measurement of the Hubble constant ($H_{0}$) and other cosmological parameters from a joint analysis of six gravitationally lensed quasars with measured time delays. All lenses except the first are analyzed blindly with respect to the cosmological parameters. In a flat $\Lambda$CDM cosmology, we find $H_{0} = 73.3_{-1.8}^{+1.7}$, a 2.4% precision measurement, in agreement with local measurements of $H_{0}$ from type Ia supernovae calibrated by the distance ladder, but in $3.1\sigma$ tension with $Planck$ observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). This method is completely independent of both the supernovae and CMB analyses. A combination of time-delay cosmography and the distance ladder results is in $5.3\sigma$ tension with $Planck$ CMB determinations of $H_{0}$ in flat $\Lambda$CDM. We compute Bayes factors to verify that all lenses give statistically consistent results, showing that we are not underestimating our uncertainties and are able to control our systematics. We explore extensions to flat $\Lambda$CDM using constraints from time-delay cosmography alone, as well as combinations with other cosmological probes, including CMB observations from $Planck$, baryon acoustic oscillations, and type Ia supernovae. Time-delay cosmography improves the precision of the other probes, demonstrating the strong complementarity. Allowing for spatial curvature does not resolve the tension with $Planck$. Using the distance constraints from time-delay cosmography to anchor the type Ia supernova distance scale, we reduce the sensitivity of our $H_0$ inference to cosmological model assumptions. For six different cosmological models, our combined inference on $H_{0}$ ranges from $\sim73$-$78~\mathrm{km~s^{-1}~Mpc^{-1}}$, which is consistent with the local distance ladder constraints., Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS; 23 pages, 13 figures, 8 tables

We present the measurement of the Hubble Constant, $H_0$, with three strong gravitational lens systems. We describe a blind analysis of both PG1115+080 and HE0435-1223 as well as an extension of our previous analysis of RXJ1131-1231. For each lens, we combine new adaptive optics (AO) imaging from the Keck Telescope, obtained as part of the SHARP AO effort, with Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaging, velocity dispersion measurements, and a description of the line-of-sight mass distribution to build an accurate and precise lens mass model. This mass model is then combined with the COSMOGRAIL measured time delays in these systems to determine $H_{0}$. We do both an AO-only and an AO+HST analysis of the systems and find that AO and HST results are consistent. After unblinding, the AO-only analysis gives $H_{0}=82.8^{+9.4}_{-8.3}~\rm km\,s^{-1}\,Mpc^{-1}$ for PG1115+080, $H_{0}=70.1^{+5.3}_{-4.5}~\rm km\,s^{-1}\,Mpc^{-1}$ for HE0435-1223, and $H_{0}=77.0^{+4.0}_{-4.6}~\rm km\,s^{-1}\,Mpc^{-1}$ for RXJ1131-1231. The joint AO-only result for the three lenses is $H_{0}=75.6^{+3.2}_{-3.3}~\rm km\,s^{-1}\,Mpc^{-1}$. The joint result of the AO+HST analysis for the three lenses is $H_{0}=76.8^{+2.6}_{-2.6}~\rm km\,s^{-1}\,Mpc^{-1}$. All of the above results assume a flat $\Lambda$ cold dark matter cosmology with a uniform prior on $\Omega_{\textrm{m}}$ in [0.05, 0.5] and $H_{0}$ in [0, 150] $\rm km\,s^{-1}\,Mpc^{-1}$. This work is a collaboration of the SHARP and H0LiCOW teams, and shows that AO data can be used as the high-resolution imaging component in lens-based measurements of $H_0$. The full time-delay cosmography results from a total of six strongly lensed systems are presented in a companion paper., Comment: 33 pages, 23 figures

We present the lens mass model of the quadruply-imaged gravitationally lensed quasar WFI2033-4723, and perform a blind cosmographical analysis based on this system. Our analysis combines (1) time-delay measurements from 14 years of data obtained by the COSmological MOnitoring of GRAvItational Lenses (COSMOGRAIL) collaboration, (2) high-resolution $\textit{Hubble Space Telescope}$ imaging, (3) a measurement of the velocity dispersion of the lens galaxy based on ESO-MUSE data, and (4) multi-band, wide-field imaging and spectroscopy characterizing the lens environment. We account for all known sources of systematics, including the influence of nearby perturbers and complex line-of-sight structure, as well as the parametrization of the light and mass profiles of the lensing galaxy. After unblinding, we determine the effective time-delay distance to be $4784_{-248}^{+399}~\mathrm{Mpc}$, an average precision of $6.6\%$. This translates to a Hubble constant $H_{0} = 71.6_{-4.9}^{+3.8}~\mathrm{km~s^{-1}~Mpc^{-1}}$, assuming a flat $\Lambda$CDM cosmology with a uniform prior on $\Omega_\mathrm{m}$ in the range [0.05, 0.5]. This work is part of the $H_0$ Lenses in COSMOGRAIL's Wellspring (H0LiCOW) collaboration, and the full time-delay cosmography results from a total of six strongly lensed systems are presented in a companion paper (H0LiCOW XIII)., Comment: Version accepted by MNRAS. 29 pages including appendix, 17 figures, 6 tables. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1607.01403

Context: The determination of the stellar initial mass function (IMF) of massive galaxies is one of the open problems in cosmology. Strong gravitational lensing is one of the few methods that allow us to constrain the IMF outside of the Local Group. Aims: The goal of this study is to statistically constrain the distribution in the IMF mismatch parameter, defined as the ratio between the true stellar mass of a galaxy and that inferred assuming a reference IMF, of massive galaxies from the BOSS CMASS sample. Methods: We take 23 strong lenses drawn from the CMASS sample, measure their Einstein radii and stellar masses using multi-band photometry from the Hyper Suprime-Cam survey, then fit a model distribution for the IMF mismatch parameter and dark matter halo mass to the whole sample. We use a prior on halo mass from weak lensing measurements and account for strong lensing selection effects in our model. Results: Assuming an NFW density profile for the dark matter distribution, we infer a value $\mu_{\mathrm{IMF}} = -0.04\pm0.11$ for the average base-10 logarithm of the IMF mismatch parameter, defined with respect to a Chabrier IMF. A Salpeter IMF is in tension with our measurements. Conclusions: Our results are consistent with a scenario in which the region of massive galaxies where the IMF normalization is significantly heavier than that of the Milky Way is much smaller than the scales $5\sim10$~kpc probed by the Einstein radius of the lenses in our sample, as recent spatially resolved studies of the IMF in massive galaxies suggest. The MCMC chains describing the posterior probability distribution of the model are available online, together with the code used to obtain them., Comment: Accepted for publication on A&A. 21 pages, 11 figures

We investigate the local and line-of-sight 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 $z_{\mathrm{L}} \sim 0.8$, we compare galaxy number counts in lines of sight toward known and newly-discovered lenses in the survey to those of a control sample consisting of random lines of sight. We also compare the local overdensity of lens galaxies to a sample of "twin" galaxies that have a similar redshift and velocity dispersion to test whether lenses lie in different environments from similar non-lens 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 lines of sight 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., Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal; 22 pages, 10 figures, 9 tables

Time-delay strong lensing provides a unique way to directly measure the Hubble constant ($H_{0}$). The precision of the $H_{0}$ measurement depends on the uncertainties in the time-delay measurements, the mass distribution of the main deflector(s), and the mass distribution along the line of sight. Tie and Kochanek (2018) have proposed a new microlensing effect on time delays based on differential magnification of the coherent accretion disc variability of the lensed quasar. If real, this effect could significantly broaden the uncertainty on the time delay measurements by up to $30\%$ for lens systems such as PG1115+080, which have relatively short time delays and monitoring over several different epochs. In this paper we develop a new technique that uses the time-delay ratios and simulated microlensing maps within a Bayesian framework in order to limit the allowed combinations of microlensing delays and thus to lessen the uncertainties due to the proposed effect. We show that, under the assumption of Tie and Kochanek (2018), the uncertainty on the time-delay distance ($D_{\Delta t}$, which is proportional to 1/$H_{0}$) of short time-delay ($\sim18$ days) lens, PG1115+080, increases from $\sim7\%$ to $\sim10\%$ by simultaneously fitting the three time-delay measurements from the three different datasets across twenty years, while in the case of long time-delay ($\sim90$ days) lens, the microlensing effect on time delays is negligible as the uncertainty on $D_{\Delta t}$ of RXJ1131-1231 only increases from $\sim2.5\%$ to $\sim2.6\%$.

Wave dark matter ($\psi$DM) predicts a compact soliton core and a granular halo in every galaxy. This work presents the first simulation study of an elliptical galaxy by including both stars and $\psi$DM, focusing on the systematic changes of the central soliton and halo granules. With the addition of stars in the inner halo, we find the soliton core consistently becomes more prominent by absorbing mass from the host halo than that without stars, and the halo granules become "non-isothermal", "hotter" in the inner halo and "cooler" in the outer halo, as opposed to the isothermal halo in pure $\psi$DM cosmological simulations. Moreover, the composite (star+$\psi$DM) mass density is found to follow a $r^{-2}$ isothermal profile near the half-light radius in most cases. Most striking is the velocity dispersion of halo stars that increases rapidly toward the galactic center by a factor of at least 2 inside the half-light radius caused by the deepened soliton gravitational potential, a result that compares favorably with observations of elliptical galaxies and bulges in spiral galaxies. However in some rare situations we find a phase segregation turning a compact distribution of stars into two distinct populations with high and very low velocity dispersions; while the high-velocity component mostly resides in the halo, the very low-velocity component is bound to the interior of the soliton core, resembling stars in faint dwarf spheroidal galaxies., Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures

The Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program (HSC SSP) is an excellent survey for the search for strong lenses, thanks to its area, image quality and depth. We use three different methods to look for lenses among 43,000 luminous red galaxies from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) sample with photometry from the S16A internal data release of the HSC SSP. The first method is a newly developed algorithm, named YATTALENS, which looks for arc-like features around massive galaxies and then estimates the likelihood of an object being a lens by performing a lens model fit. The second method, CHITAH, is a modeling-based algorithm originally developed to look for lensed quasars. The third method makes use of spectroscopic data to look for emission lines from objects at a different redshift from that of the main galaxy. We find 15 definite lenses, 36 highly probable lenses and 282 possible lenses. Among the three methods, YATTALENS, which was developed specifically for this problem, performs best in terms of both completeness and purity. Nevertheless five highly probable lenses were missed by YATTALENS but found by the other two methods, indicating that the three methods are highly complementary. Based on these numbers we expect to find $\sim$300 definite or probable lenses by the end of the HSC SSP., Comment: Published on PASJ. 17 pages, 8 figures. Image quality of Figures 6 and 7 has been degraded due to arXiv file size limit. Full quality versions can be found at http://member.ipmu.jp/alessandro.sonnenfeld/sugohi1_candidates.html

We report the serendipitous discovery of a quadruply lensed source at $z_{\rm s}=3.76$, HSC~J115252+004733, from the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) Survey. The source is lensed by an early-type galaxy at $z_{\rm l}=0.466$ and a satellite galaxy. Here, we investigate the properties of the source by studying its size and luminosity from the imaging and the luminosity and velocity width of the Ly-$\alpha$ line from the spectrum. Our analyses suggest that the source is most probably a low-luminosity active galactic nucleus (LLAGN) but the possibility of it being a compact bright galaxy (e.g., a Lyman-$\alpha$ emitter or Lyman Break Galaxy) cannot be excluded. The brighter pair of lensed images appears point-like except in the HSC $i$-band (with a seeing $\sim0.5"$). The extended emission in the $i$-band image could be due to the host galaxy underneath the AGN, or alternatively, due to a highly compact lensed galaxy (without AGN) which appears point-like in all bands except in $i$-band. We also find that the flux ratio of the brighter pair of images is different in the Ks-band compared to optical wavelengths. Phenomena such as differential extinction and intrinsic variability cannot explain this chromatic variation. While microlensing from stars in the foreground galaxy is less likely to be the cause, it cannot be ruled out completely. If the galaxy hosts an AGN, then this represents the highest redshift quadruply imaged AGN known to date, enabling study of a distant LLAGN. Discovery of this unusually compact and faint source demonstrates the potential of the HSC survey., Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, 3 Tables, MNRAS accepted, text reduced

We present a list of galaxy-scale lens candidates including a highly probable interacting galaxy-scale lens in the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) imaging survey. We combine HSC imaging with the blended-spectra catalog from the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey to identify lens candidates, and use lens mass modeling to confirm the candidates. We find 46 matches between the HSC S14A_0b imaging data release and the GAMA catalog. Ten of them are probable lens systems according to their morphology and redshifts. There is one system with an interacting galaxy pair, HSC J084928+000949, that has a valid mass model. We predict the total mass enclosed by the Einstein radius of $\sim0.72$" ($\sim1.65$kpc) for this new expected lens system to be $\sim10^{10.59}M_{\odot}$. Using the photometry in the {\it grizy} bands of the HSC survey and stellar population synthesis modeling with a Salpeter stellar initial mass function, we estimate the stellar mass within the Einstein radius to be $\sim10^{10.46}\,M_{\odot}$. We thus find a dark matter mass fraction within the Einstein radius of $\sim25\%$. Further spectroscopy or high-resolution imaging would allow confirmation of the nature of these lens candidates. The particular system with the interacting galaxy pair, if confirmed, would provide an opportunity to study the interplay between dark matter and stars as galaxies build up through hierarchical mergers., Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures

Strong gravitationally lensed quasars provide powerful means to study galaxy evolution and cosmology. Current and upcoming imaging surveys will contain thousands of new lensed quasars, augmenting the existing sample by at least two orders of magnitude. To find such lens systems, we built a robot, CHITAH, that hunts for lensed quasars by modeling the configuration of the multiple quasar images. Specifically, given an image of an object that might be a lensed quasar, CHITAH first disentangles the light from the supposed lens galaxy and the light from the multiple quasar images based on color information. A simple rule is designed to categorize the given object as a potential four-image (quad) or two-image (double) lensed quasar system. The configuration of the identified quasar images is subsequently modeled to classify whether the object is a lensed quasar system. We test the performance of CHITAH using simulated lens systems based on the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey. For bright quads with large image separations (with Einstein radius $r_{\rm ein}>1.1"$) simulated using Gaussian point-spread functions, a high true-positive rate (TPR) of $\sim$90% and a low false-positive rate of $\sim$$3\%$ show that this is a promising approach to search for new lens systems. We obtain high TPR for lens systems with $r_{\rm ein}\gtrsim0.5"$, so the performance of CHITAH is set by the seeing. We further feed a known gravitational lens system, COSMOS 5921$+$0638, to CHITAH, and demonstrate that CHITAH is able to classify this real gravitational lens system successfully. Our newly built CHITAH is omnivorous and can hunt in any ground-based imaging surveys., Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures (accepted for publication in ApJ)

A new approximation method for inverting the Poisson's equation is presented for a continuously distributed and finite-sized source in an unbound domain. The advantage of this image multipole method arises from its ability to place the computational error close to the computational domain boundary, making the source region almost error free. It is contrasted to the modified Green's function method that has small but finite errors in the source region. Moreover, this approximation method also has a systematic way to greatly reduce the errors at the expense of somewhat greater computational efforts. Numerical examples of three-dimensional and two-dimensional cases are given to illustrate the advantage of the new method., Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures