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The central image of a gravitationally lensed quasar

Nature volume 427, pages 613–615 (2004)Cite this article

Abstract

A galaxy can act as a gravitational lens, producing multiple images of a background object. Theory predicts that there should be an odd number of images produced by the lens1,2, but hitherto almost all lensed objects have two or four images. The missing ‘central’ images, which should be faint and appear near the centre of the lensing galaxy, have long been sought as probes of galactic cores too distant to resolve with ordinary observations3,4,5,6,7. There are five candidates for central images, but in one case the third image is not necessarily the central one8,9,10, and in the others the putative central images might be foreground sources11,12,13,14,15. Here we report a secure identification of a central image, based on radio observations of one of the candidates14. Lens models using the central image reveal that the massive black hole at the centre of the lensing galaxy has a mass of <2 × 108 solar masses (M⊙), and the galaxy's surface density at the location of the central image is > 20,000M⊙ pc-2, which is in agreement with expections based on observations of galaxies that are much closer to the Earth.

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Figure 1: A radio map of the three components A, B and C of gravitational lens PMN J1632–0033.
Figure 2: The central radio component and the bright quasar images have similar radio spectra.

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Acknowledgements

We thank S. Doeleman, D. Harris and P. Schechter for discussions, and J. Bullock for comments on the manuscript. J.N.W. acknowledges the support of the National Science Foundation (NSF) through an Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship. The VLA is part of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, an NSF facility operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, USA

    Joshua N. Winn, David Rusin & Christopher S. Kochanek

  2. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19104, USA

    David Rusin

  3. Department of Astronomy, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, 43210, USA

    Christopher S. Kochanek

Authors
  1. Joshua N. Winn
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  2. David Rusin
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  3. Christopher S. Kochanek
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Correspondence to Joshua N. Winn.

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Winn, J., Rusin, D. & Kochanek, C. The central image of a gravitationally lensed quasar. Nature 427, 613–615 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02279

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