The Sloan Bright Arcs Survey : Six Strongly Lensed Galaxies at z=0.4-1.4

Abstract

We present new results of our program to systematically search for strongly lensed galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) imaging data. In this study six strong lens systems are presented which we have confirmed with follow-up spectroscopy and imaging using the 3.5m telescope at the Apache Point Observatory. Preliminary mass models indicate that the lenses are group-scale systems with velocity dispersions ranging from 466-878 km s^{-1} at z=0.17-0.45 which are strongly lensing source galaxies at z=0.4-1.4. Galaxy groups are a relatively new mass scale just beginning to be probed with strong lensing. Our sample of lenses roughly doubles the confirmed number of group-scale lenses in the SDSS and complements ongoing strong lens searches in other imaging surveys such as the CFHTLS (Cabanac et al 2007). As our arcs were discovered in the SDSS imaging data they are all bright ($r\lesssim 22$), making them ideally suited for detailed follow-up studies.

13 pages, 3 figures, submitted to ApJL, the Sloan Bright Arcs page is located here: http://home.fnal.gov/~kubo/brightarcs.html

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• The CFHTLS Strong Lensing Legacy Survey: I. Survey overview and T0002 release sample
• A Galaxy Photometric Redshift Catalog for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 6
• The Cosmic Horseshoe: Discovery of an Einstein Ring around a Giant Luminous Red Galaxy
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• The SDSS Discovery of a Strongly Lensed Post-Starburst Galaxy at z=0.766
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• The Sloan Bright Arcs Survey : Discovery of Seven New Strongly Lensed Galaxies from z=0.66-2.94
• The Sloan Bright Arcs Survey: Ten Strong Gravitational Lensing Clusters and Evidence of Overconcentration
• Astrophysical Tests of Dark Matter Self-Interactions
• Identification of Galaxy-Galaxy Strong Lens Candidates in the DECam Local Volume Exploration Survey Using Machine Learning
• The DES Bright Arcs Survey: Candidate Strongly Lensed Galaxy Systems from the Dark Energy Survey 5,000 Sq. Deg. Footprint
• Pixel-level modelling of group-scale strong lens CASSOWARY 19
• Understanding the large inferred Einstein radii of observed low-mass galaxy clusters