A Very Large (θ_E ≳ 40″) Strong Gravitational Lens Selected with the Sunyaev–Zel’dovich Effect: PLCK G287.0+32.9 (z = 0.38)

Abstract

Since galaxy clusters sit at the high-end of the mass function, the number of galaxy clusters both massive and concentrated enough to yield particularly large Einstein radii poses useful constraints on cosmological and structure formation models. To date, less than a handful of clusters are known to have Einstein radii exceeding ∼ 40 (for a source at z s 2, nominally). Here, we report an addition to that list of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) selected cluster, PLCK G287.0+32.9 (z = 0.38), the second-highest SZ-mass (M 500 ) cluster from the Planck catalog. We present the first strong lensing analysis of the cluster, identifying 20 sets of multiply-imaged galaxies and candidates in new Hubble Space Telescope data, including a long, l ∼ 22 giant arc, as well as a quadruply-imaged, apparently bright (magnified to J F 110W =25.3 AB), likely high-redshift dropout galaxy at z phot = 6.90 [6.13-8.43] (95% C.I.). Our analysis reveals a very large critical area (1.55 arcmin 2 , z s 2), corresponding to an effective Einstein radius of θ E ∼ 42 . The model suggests the critical area will expand to 2.58 arcmin 2 (θ E ∼ 54 ) for sources at z s ∼ 10. Our work adds to recent efforts to model very massive clusters towards the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, in order to identify the most useful cosmic lenses for studying the early Universe. Spectroscopic redshifts for the multiply-imaged galaxies and additional HST data will be necessary for refining the lens model and verifying the nature of the z ∼ 7 dropout.

Merging Cluster Collaboration: A Panchromatic Atlas of Radio Relic Mergers

“…Thus it is called into question whether these arcs are actually multiple images. Zitrin et al (2017) completed a strong lensing analysis with HST imaging and 20 sets of multiple images. A high-redshift dropout galaxy is identified with a photometric redshift of ∼7, and the critical area for z ∼ 10 source galaxies is found to be 2.58 arcmin 2 making PLCKG287 the largest known cosmic lens.…”

Stellar Properties of z ≳ 8 Galaxies in the Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey

“…In order to correct for magnification from lensing, relevant for SFRs and stellar masses, we use lens models created by the RELICS team. We use three lens modeling codes to produce the models for the clusters described (2018), and the LTM models for Abell S295 and PLCKG287+32 are described in detail by Cibirka et al (2018) and Zitrin et al (2017), respectively. The remaining three clusters will have details available in the future, and all models are available on MAST 3 .…”

RELICS: spectroscopy of gravitationally lensed z ≃ 2 reionization-era analogues and implications for C iii] detections at z > 6

“…After correcting for the magnification, we find that RXCJ0911-612 has an absolute magnitude of M UV =-17.92 +0.02 −0.03 . PLCKG287-5648 was previously identified as a multiply-imaged system by Zitrin et al (2017) (ID number 2 in their paper). Among the three images, only 2.3 has near-infrared imaging coverage necessary for the EELG color selection.…”