Strong gravitational lensing by AGNs as a probe of the quasar-host relations in the distant Universe

Abstract

The tight correlations found between masses of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and the luminosities, total stellar masses, and velocity dispersions of their host galaxies are often interpreted as a sign of their co-evolution. Studying these correlations across redshift provides a powerful insight into the evolutionary path followed by the quasar and its host galaxy. While the mass of the black hole is accessible from single-epoch spectra, measuring the mass of its host galaxy is challenging as the active nucleus largely overshines its host. Here, we present a technique to probe quasar-host relations beyond the local universe with strong gravitational lensing, hence overcoming the use of stellar population models or velocity dispersion measurements, both prone to degeneracies. We study in detail one of the three known cases of strong lensing by a quasar to accurately measure the mass of its host and to infer a total lensing mass of ${\log }_{10}(M_{\mathrm{Tot},\mathrm{h}}/M_{\odot })=10.27_{-0.07}^{+0.06}$ within the Einstein radius of 1.2 kpc. The lensing measurement is more precise than any other alternative technique and compatible with the local $M_{BH}$-$M_{\star ,h}$ scaling relation. The sample of such quasar-galaxy or quasar-quasar lensing systems should reach a few hundreds with Euclid and Rubin-LSST, thus enabling the application of such a method with statistically significant sample sizes.

arXiv commentPublished in Nature Astronomy, 15 pages, 6 figures

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