Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Sep 1987
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1987a%26a...183..189s&link_type=abstract
Astronomy and Astrophysics (ISSN 0004-6361), vol. 183, no. 2, Sept. 1987, p. 189-202.
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
34
Astronomical Models, Dark Matter, Gravitational Lenses, Mass Distribution, Quasars, Statistical Distributions, Cosmology, Galaxies, Red Shift
Scientific paper
The statistical effects of gravitational light bending on the observed luminosity function of compact extragalactic sources are investigated. The main results are: (1) if the luminosity function of quasars is sufficiently steep, even a low average density of compact objects in the universe will have a dramatic influence on the observed luminosity function. Since lensing leads to a flattening of number counts compared to those in a homogeneous universe, a steep luminosity function is not ruled out by observations. (2) If the continuum emitting region of quasars is as small as indicated by variability, practically all bright quasars are highly amplified, provided that the mass of the compact objects exceeds ≡0.01 M_sun;. The main ingredients of the model (source size, density of compact objects, luminosity function of quasars) are briefly discussed and the possible implications of the results are outlined; these include an alternative explanation of the Baldwin effect, the interpretation of BL Lacs as strongly lensed quasars and the possibility to attribute part of the source variability to time dependent amplification.
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