Gravitationally lensed quasars in Gaia: III. 22 new lensed quasars from Gaia Data Release 2
Cameron A. Lemon, Matthew W. Auger, Richard G. McMahon

TL;DR
This paper reports the discovery and spectroscopic confirmation of 22 new gravitationally lensed quasars using Gaia Data Release 2, employing multiple detection techniques and analyzing their properties for future statistical studies.
Contribution
The study introduces new techniques for identifying lensed quasars in Gaia data and provides a substantial new sample with spectroscopic confirmation, enhancing the statistical understanding of lensing systems.
Findings
22 new confirmed lensed quasars from Gaia data
Identification of a quadruply imaged system suitable for time delay monitoring
Demonstration of techniques to recover known lenses with high efficiency
Abstract
We report the discovery and spectroscopic confirmation of 22 new gravitationally lensed quasars found using data release 2. The selection was made using several techniques: multiple detections around objects in quasar candidate catalogues, modelling of unWISE coadd pixels using astrometry, and detections offset from photometric and spectroscopic galaxies. Spectra of 33 candidates were obtained with the William Herschel Telescope, 22 of which are lensed quasars, 2 highly probably lensed quasars, 5 nearly identical quasar pairs, 1 inconclusive system, and 3 contaminants. Of the 3 confirmed quadruply imaged systems, J2145+6345 is a 2.1 arcsecond separation quad with 4 bright images (=16.86, 17.26, 18.34, 18.56), making it ideal for time delay monitoring. Analysing this new sample alongside known lenses in the Pan-STARRS…
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