Related papers: LBQS 0015+0239: A Binary Quasar with Small Angular…

This paper reviews the question of whether the wide separation double quasar Q2138-431 is a gravitational lens. From early work, the two quasar images are known to have almost identical spectra and redshifts, but no lensing galaxy has so…

High-redshift binary quasars provide key insights into mergers and quasar activity, and are useful tools for probing the spatial kinematics and chemistry of galaxies along the line-of-sight. However, only three sub-10-kpc binaries have been…

We present HST and UKIRT spectra and images of the 2 kpc binary quasar LBQS 0103-2753 (z=0.858). The HST images (V- and I-band) show tidal features demonstrating that this system is a major galaxy merger in progress. A two-color composite…

The clustering of quasars on small scales yields fundamental constraints on models of quasar evolution and the buildup of supermassive black holes. This paper describes the first systematic survey to discover high redshift binary quasars.…

We have obtained follow-up observations of the quasar pair LBQS 0107-025A,B and new observations of the nearby quasar LBQS 0107-0232 with the Hubble Space Telescope Faint Object Spectrograph. Extended wavelength coverage of LBQS 0107-025A…

We report the discovery of a new two-image gravitational lens candidate. The system RX J0921+4529 contains two z_s=1.66 quasars separated by 6."93 with an H band magnitude difference of $\Delta m=1.39$. The HST NIC2 H band images reveal an…

We present the discovery of a triplet of quasars at z~1.51. The whole system is well accommodated within 25 arcsec (i.e., 200 kpc in projected distance). The velocity differences among the three objects (as measured through the broad MgII…

We report follow-up observations of two gravitational lens candidates identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) dataset. We have confirmed that SDSS J102111.02+491330.4 is a previously unknown gravitationally lensed quasar. This…

Over the last few years, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) has discovered several hundred quasars with redshift between 4.0 and 6.4. Including the effects of magnification bias, one expects a priori that an appreciable fraction of these…

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…

We report a catalog of 509 pairs identified among 10403 nearby galaxies with line-of-sight velocities V_LG < 3500 km/s.We selected binary systems in accordance with two criteria (bounding and temporal), which require the physical pair of…

Wide-separation lensed quasars (WSLQs) are rare systems that arise from the chance alignment of two objects: a galaxy cluster and a background quasar. After two decades, only seven WSLQs have been found. Here, we report the discovery of…

We present Keck/ESI long-slit spectroscopy of SBS 1421+511, a system consisting of a quasar at z = 0.276 and an extended source 3" northern to the quasar. The quasar shows a blue-skewed profile of Balmer broad emission lines, which can be…

We report the discovery of a quasar close to SDSS J0927+2943 (z = 0.713), which is a massive binary / recoiling black hole candidate. The companion quasar is at a projected distance of 125 h_70^{-1} kpc and exhibits a radial velocity…

We have analyzed images from the VST ATLAS survey to identify candidate gravitationally lensed quasar systems in a sample of WISE sources with W1 - W2 > 0.7. Results from followup spectroscopy with the Baade 6.5 m telescope are presented…

We present high-resolution imaging and low-resolution spectroscopy of the BL Lac object PKS 0537-441 (z = 0.893) and its environment. The observations were designed to clarify, whether the properties of PKS 0537-441 are affected by…

We report the discovery of a new gravitational lens system. This object, ULAS J234311.93-005034.0, is the first to be selected by using the new UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS), together with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The…

We report the discovery of a new gravitationally lensed quasar from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, SDSS J090334.92+502819.2. This object was targeted for SDSS spectroscopy as a Luminous Red Galaxy (LRG), but manual examination of the…

We report the discovery of COOL J0335$-$1927, a quasar at z = 3.27 lensed into three images with a maximum separation of 23.3" by a galaxy cluster at z = 0.4178. To date this is the highest redshift wide-separation lensed quasar known. In…

The ultraviolet broad absorption lines have been seen in the spectra of quasars at high redshift, and are generally considered to be caused by outflows with velocities from thousands kilometers per second to one tenth of the speed of light.…