Discovery of eight lensing clusters of galaxies

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of eight new galaxy clusters acting as gravitational lenses, identified through visual inspection of SDSS data, and analyzes their properties including mass and luminosity.

Contribution

It introduces a new visual search method for giant lensed arcs in SDSS data, leading to the discovery of multiple new lensing galaxy clusters.

Findings

Discovered 8 strong lensing galaxy clusters.

Lensed arcs are bluer than cluster member galaxies.

Mass-to-light ratios are consistent with known lensing clusters.

Abstract

Clusters of galaxies have a huge mass which can act as gravitational lenses. Galaxies behind clusters can be distorted to form arcs in images by the lenses. Herein a search was done for giant lensed arcs by galaxy clusters using the SDSS data. By visually inspecting SDSS images of newly identified clusters in the SDSS DR8 and Stripe 82 data, we discover 8 strong lensing clusters together with additional 3 probable and 6 possible cases. The lensed arcs show bluer colors than the member galaxies of clusters. The masses and optical luminosities of galaxy clusters interior to the arcs are calculated, and the mass-to-light ratios are found to be in the range of a few tens of M_Solar/L_Solar, consistent with the distribution of previously known lensing clusters.