Varstrometry for Off-nucleus and Dual Subkiloparsec AGN (VODKA): Three Quadruply Lensed Quasars at Cosmic Noon in HST and JWST

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery and analysis of three quadruply lensed quasars at high redshift using HST and JWST, modeling their lensing galaxies and constraining their properties to enhance understanding of strong lensing systems.

Contribution

First detailed modeling of three high-redshift quadruply lensed quasars with HST and JWST, constraining lens properties and redshifts despite limited spectroscopic data.

Findings

Lenses are early-type galaxies with effective radii of 1.5-3.5 kpc.

Measured Einstein radii are at the lower end for known quadruple lenses.

Lenses are at intermediate to high redshift, expanding the known parameter space.

Abstract

We present results from imaging observations of three quadruply lensed quasars by Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) at redshifts $z = 2.550$, 2.975, and 1.500. We model our targets assuming a singular isothermal ellipsoid mass profile and an elliptical S\~A\c{opyright}rsic profile for the lensing galaxies, and reconstruct the geometric configuration of each system with measured Einstein radii of 0.44$'$, 0.58$'$, and 0.49$'$. While no spectroscopic measurements are available for the lenses, we constrain the redshift of each lens to $0.5 < z < 1.2$, $1.0 < z < 1.5$, and $0.4 < z < 0.9$. For all three lenses, the best-fit light model yield a typical de Vaucouleurs $n_{\rm S\acute{e}rsic} \sim 4$ profile and an effective radius $R_e$ around $\sim 1.5 - 3.5$ kpc. We accordingly classify the three lenses as early-type galaxies at an intermediate to high redshift, a common type for strong lensing galaxies. Compared to other known quadruple lenses, the lensing galaxies in this work are at the lower end of the distribution of Einstein radii and upper end of the distribution of the lens redshifts. They represent an interesting quadrant of subarcsecond-separation lenses in the population of single-galaxy strong lensing which have been largely unexplored yet and will be great targets of interest in upcoming high-resolution lensing surveys.