English

A Simple Method To Find All Lensed Quasars

Astrophysics 2009-11-13 v1

Abstract

We demonstrate that gravitationally lensed quasars are easily recognized using image subtraction methods as time variable sources that are spatially extended. For Galactic latitudes |b|>20 deg, lensed quasars dominate the population of spatially extended variable sources, although there is some contamination from variable star pairs, variable star-quasar pairs and binary quasars that can be easily controlled using other information in the survey such as the object light curves and colors. This will allow planned large-scale synoptic surveys to find lensed quasars almost down to their detection limits without the need for extensive follow-up observations.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0512031,
  title  = {A Simple Method To Find All Lensed Quasars},
  author = {C. S. Kochanek and B. Mochejska and N. D. Morgan and K. Z. Stanek},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0512031},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

11 pages, 4 figures, submitted to ApJL

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