Discovery of the optically bright, wide separation double quasar SDSS J1442+4055

Abstract

Optically bright, wide separation double (gravitationally lensed) quasars can be easily monitored, leading to light curves of great importance in determining the Hubble constant and other cosmological parameters, as well as the structure of active nuclei and halos of galaxies. Searching for new double quasars in the SDSS-III database, we discovered SDSS J1442+4055. This consists of two bright images (18-19 magnitudes in the r band) of the same distant quasar at redshift z = 2.575. The two quasar images are separated by about 2.1 arcsec, show significant parallel flux variations and can be monitored from late 2015. We also found other two double quasar candidates, SDSS J1617+3827 (z = 2.079) and SDSS J1642+3200 (z = 2.264), displaying evidence for the presence of a lensing object and parallel flux variations, but requiring further spectroscopic observations to be confirmed as lensed quasars.

7 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

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Cited by in corpus (11)

• Gravitationally lensed quasars in Gaia: III. 22 new lensed quasars from Gaia Data Release 2
• The STRong lensing Insights into the Dark Energy Survey (STRIDES) 2017/2018 follow-up campaign: Discovery of 10 lensed quasars and 10 quasar pairs
• KiDS-SQuaD: The KiDS Strongly lensed Quasar Detection project
• A Search for Gravitationally Lensed Quasars and Quasar Pairs in Pan-STARRS1: Spectroscopy and Sources of Shear in the Diamond 2M1134$-$2103
• New database for a sample of optically bright lensed quasars in the northern hemisphere
• Dissecting cold gas in a high-redshift galaxy using a lensed background quasar
• Finding Multiply-Lensed and Binary Quasars in the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys
• Gaia GraL II - Gaia DR2 Gravitational Lens Systems: The Known Multiply Imaged Quasars
• Gravitationally Lensed Quasar SDSS J1442+4055: Redshifts of Lensing Galaxies, Time Delay, Microlensing Variability, and Intervening Metal System at z ~ 2
• Spectroscopic follow-up of double quasar candidates
• Model selection using time-delay lenses