The Lens Galaxy In PG1115+080 is an Ellipse

Abstract

We use the structure of the Einstein ring image of the quasar host galaxy in the four-image quasar lens PG1115+080 to determine the angular structure of the gravitational potential of the lens galaxy. We find that it is well described as an ellipsoid and that the best fit non-ellipsoidal models are consistent with the ellipsoidal model. We find upper limits on the standard parameters for the m=3 and m=4 deviations from an ellipse of <0.035 and <0.064, respectively. We also find that the position of the center of mass is consistent with the center of light, with an upper limit of 0.005 arcsec on the offset between them. Neither the ellipsoidal nor the non-ellipsoidal models can reproduce the observed image flux ratios while simultaneously maintaining a reasonable fit to the Einstein ring, so the anomalous flux ratio of the A_1 and A_2 quasar images must be due to substructure in the gravitational potential such as compact satellite galaxies or stellar microlenses rather than odd angular structure in the lens galaxy.

7 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal

References in corpus (2)

• The Evolution and Structure of Early-type Field Galaxies: A Combined Statistical Analysis of Gravitational Lenses
• The influence of gravitational lensing on the spectra of lensed QSOs

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