Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2007-06-15
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
ApJ (Letters), in press
Scientific paper
10.1086/524948
We report the discovery of an almost complete Einstein ring of diameter 10" in Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 5 (DR5). Spectroscopic data from the 6m telescope of the Special Astrophysical Observatory reveals that the deflecting galaxy has a line-of-sight velocity dispersion in excess of 400 km/s and a redshift of 0.444, whilst the source is a star-forming galaxy with a redshift of 2.379. From its color and luminosity, we conclude that the lens is an exceptionally massive Luminous Red Galaxy (LRG) with a mass within the Einstein radius of 5 x 10^12 solar masses. This remarkable system provides a laboratory for probing the dark matter distribution in LRGs at distances out to 3 effective radii, and studying the properties of high redshift star-forming galaxies.
Belokurov Vasily
Evans Wyn N.
Gilmore Gerard
Hewett Paul C.
King Lindsay J.
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