A Very Large (${\theta }_E\gtrsim 40$") Strong Gravitational Lens Selected with the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect: PLCK G287.0+32.9 ($z$ = 0.38)

Abstract

Since galaxy clusters sit at the high-end of the mass function, the number of galaxy clusters both massive and concentrated enough to yield particularly large Einstein radii poses useful constraints on cosmological and structure formation models. To date, less than a handful of clusters are known to have Einstein radii exceeding $\sim 40$" (for a source at $z_s\simeq 2$, nominally). Here, we report an addition to that list of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) selected cluster, PLCK G287.0+32.9 ($z=0.38$), the second-highest SZ-mass ($M_{500}$) cluster from the Planck catalog. We present the first strong lensing analysis of the cluster, identifying 20 sets of multiply-imaged galaxies and candidates in new \emph{Hubble Space Telescope} data, including a long, $l\sim 22$" giant arc, as well as a quadruply-imaged, apparently bright (magnified to J${}_{F110W}=$25.3 AB), likely high-redshift dropout galaxy at $z_{phot}=6.90$ [6.13--8.43] (95\% C.I.). Our analysis reveals a very large critical area (1.55 arcmin${}^2$, $z_s\simeq 2$), corresponding to an effective Einstein radius of ${\theta }_E\sim 42$". The model suggests the critical area will expand to 2.58 arcmin${}^2$ (${\theta }_E\sim 54$") for sources at $z_s\sim 10$. Our work adds to recent efforts to model very massive clusters towards the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, in order to identify the most useful cosmic lenses for studying the early Universe. Spectroscopic redshifts for the multiply-imaged galaxies and additional HST data will be necessary for refining the lens model and verifying the nature of the $z\sim 7$ dropout.

Published in ApJL; 8 pages, 5 figures, 1 table; V2: accepted version

References in corpus (10)

• Hubble Space Telescope Combined Strong and Weak Lensing Analysis of the CLASH Sample: Mass and Magnification Models and Systematic Uncertainties
• CLASH: The Concentration-Mass Relation of Galaxy Clusters
• The Extraordinary Amount of Substructure in the Hubble Frontier Fields Cluster Abell 2744
• Large Einstein Radii: A Problem for LambdaCDM
• The strongest gravitational lenses: I. The statistical impact of cluster mergers
• The red sequence at birth in the galaxy cluster ClJ1449+0856 at z=2
• Abell 2744: Too much substructure for Lambda CDM?
• The strongest gravitational lenses: II. Is the large Einstein radius of MACS J0717.5+3745 in conflict with LCDM?
• The probability distribution of cluster formation times and implied Einstein Radii
• The strongest gravitational lenses: IV. The order statistics of the largest Einstein radii with cluster mergers

Cited by in corpus (18)

• RELICS: Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey
• Merging Cluster Collaboration: A Panchromatic Atlas of Radio Relic Mergers
• Shapes and alignments of dark matter haloes and their brightest cluster galaxies in 39 strong lensing clusters
• Stellar Properties of z ~ 8 Galaxies in the Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey
• H2O Southern Galactic Plane Survey (HOPS): Paper III - Properties of Dense Molecular Gas across the Inner Milky Way
• RELICS: Spectroscopy of gravitationally-lensed $z\simeq 2$ reionization-era analogs and implications for CIII] detections at $z>6$
• RELICS: Strong-lensing analysis of the massive clusters MACS J0308.9+2645 and PLCK G171.9-40.7
• RELICS: Strong Lensing analysis of the galaxy clusters Abell S295, Abell 697, MACS J0025.4-1222, and MACS J0159.8-0849
• The Strongest Cluster Lenses: An Analysis of the Relation Between Strong Gravitational Lensing Strength and the Physical Properties of Galaxy Clusters
• RELICS: Properties of z>5.5 Galaxies Inferred from Spitzer and Hubble Imaging Including A Candidate z~6.8 Strong [OIII] Emitter
• RELICS: A Very Large (${\theta }_E\sim 40"$) Cluster Lens -- RXC J0032.1+1808
• Gravitational waves from pulsars in the context of magnetic ellipticity
• AStroLens: Automatic Strong-Lens Modeling of X-ray Selected Galaxy Clusters
• RELICS: Small Lensed $z\ge 5.5$ Galaxies Selected as Potential Lyman Continuum Leakers
• The powerful lens galaxy cluster PLCK G287.0+32.9 (${\theta }_E\sim 43^{\prime \prime }$)
• SLICE: SPT-CL J0546-5345 -- A prominent strong-lensing cluster at $z=1.07$
• CHEX-MATE: New detections and properties of the radio diffuse emission in massive clusters with MeerKAT
• Is there a tilt in the fundamental (hyper)plane?