Time Delays in the Gravitationally Lensed Quasar H1413+117 (Cloverleaf)

Abstract

The quadruple quasar H1413+117 (z_s = 2.56) has been monitored with the 2.0 m Liverpool Telescope in the r Sloan band from 2008 February to July. This optical follow-up leads to accurate light curves of the four quasar images (A-D), which are defined by 33 epochs of observation and an average photometric error of \sim 15 mmag. We then use the observed (intrinsic) variations of \sim 50-100 mmag to measure the three time delays for the lens system for the first time (1σconfidence intervals): Δτ_{AB} = -17 +/- 3, Δτ_{AC} = -20 +/- 4, and Δτ_{AD} = 23 +/- 4 days (Δτ_{ij} = τ_j - τ_i; B and C are leading, while D is trailing). Although time delays for lens systems are often used to obtain the Hubble constant (H_0), the unavailability of the spectroscopic lens redshift (z_l) in the system H1413+117 prevents a determination of H_0 from the measured delays. In this paper, the new time delay constraints and a concordance expansion rate (H_0 = 70 km s^{-1} Mpc^{-1}) allow us to improve the lens model and to estimate the previously unknown z_l. Our 1σestimate z_l = 1.88^{+0.09}_{-0.11} is an example of how to infer the redshift of very distant galaxies via gravitational lensing.

12 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables, accepted for publication in ApJ

References in corpus (8)

• Gravitational Lens Time Delays: A Statistical Assessment of Lens Model Dependences and Implications for the Global Hubble Constant
• The Hubble time inferred from 10 time-delay lenses
• Detection of a Companion Lens Galaxy using the Mid-infrared Flux Ratios of the Gravitationally Lensed Quasar H1413+117
• Time delay of SBS 0909+532
• Integral field spectroscopy of four lensed quasars: analysis of their neighborhood and evidence for microlensing
• Improved Constraints on the Gravitational Lens Q0957+561. I. Weak Lensing
• Estimating cosmological parameters from future gravitational lens surveys
• Microlensing variability in FBQ 0951+2635: short-timescale events or a long-timescale fluctuation?

Cited by in corpus (23)

• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Lens Search. V. Final Catalog from the Seventh Data Release
• Microlensing of the broad line region in 17 lensed quasars
• The STRong lensing Insights into the Dark Energy Survey (STRIDES) 2017/2018 follow-up campaign: Discovery of 10 lensed quasars and 10 quasar pairs
• Hubble constant and dark energy inferred from free-form determined time delay distances
• Andromeda's Parachute: A Bright Quadruply Lensed Quasar at z=2.377
• $H_0$ from ten well-measured time delay lenses
• Microlensing in H1413+117 : disentangling line profile emission and absorption in a broad absorption line quasar
• A Spectroscopic Survey of the Fields of 28 Strong Gravitational Lenses: The Redshift Catalog
• Weak Lensing by Line-of-sight Halos as the Origin of Flux-ratio Anomalies in Quadruply Lensed QSOs
• New database for a sample of optically bright lensed quasars in the northern hemisphere
• Gravitational lens system SDSS J1339+1310: microlensing factory and time delay
• Microlensing Constraints on Broad Absorption and Emission Line Flows in the Quasar H1413+117
• Doubly imaged quasar SDSS J1515+1511: time delay and lensing galaxies
• A 4% measurement of $H_0$ using the cumulative distribution of strong-lensing time delays in doubly-imaged quasars
• Weak Lensing by Intergalactic Mini-Structures in Quadruple Lens Systems: Simulation and Detection
• Evidence for two spatially separated UV continuum emitting regions in the Cloverleaf broad absorption line quasar
• The rates and time-delay distribution of multiply imaged supernovae behind lensing clusters
• World Space Observatory-Ultraviolet: ISSIS, the imaging instrument
• Multiple MgII Absorption Systems in the Lines of Sight to Quadruply Lensed Quasar H1413+1143
• Magnification relations of quad lenses and applications on Einstein crosses
• New near-infrared observations and lens-model constraints for UM673
• Gravitationally lensed QSOs in the ISSIS/WSO-UV era
• Time-domain studies of gravitationally lensed quasars (GLQs)