What Makes Quadruply Lensed Quasars Quadruple?

TL;DR

This paper investigates the factors influencing why some gravitational lensing systems produce four images, analyzing the roles of galaxy shape and external tides, and comparing observational data with theoretical predictions.

Contribution

It provides a detailed decomposition of quadruply lensed quasars, revealing the relative importance of intrinsic ellipticity and tidal shear, and challenges previous theoretical forecasts.

Findings

15 out of 31 systems are shear-dominated.

11 out of 31 systems are ellipticity-dominated.

8 systems have comparable contributions from both effects.

Abstract

Among known strongly lensed quasar systems, ~25% have gravitational potentials sufficiently flat (and sources sufficiently well aligned) to produce four images rather than two. The projected flattening of the lensing galaxy and tides from neighboring galaxies both contribute to the potential's quadrupole. Witt's hyperbola and Wynne's ellipse permit determination of the overall quadrupole from the positions of the quasar images. The position of the lensing galaxy resolves the distinct contributions of intrinsic ellipticity and tidal shear to that quadrupole. Among 31 quadruply lensed quasars systems with statistically significant decompositions, 15 are either reliably ($2\sigma$) or provisionally ($1\sigma$) shear-dominated and 11 are either reliably or provisionally ellipticity-dominated. For the remaining 8, the two effects make roughly equal contributions to the combined cross section (newly derived here) for quadruple lensing. This observational result is strongly at variance with the ellipticity-dominated forecast of Oguri & Marshall (2010).