The following article is Open access

Is there a quad problem among optical gravitational lenses?

Published 17 December 2007 Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd
, , Focus on Gravitational Lensing Citation Masamune Oguri 2007 New J. Phys. 9 442 DOI 10.1088/1367-2630/9/12/442

1367-2630/9/12/442

Abstract

Most of the optical gravitational lenses recently discovered in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Lens Search (SQLS) have two-images rather than four-images, in marked contrast to radio lenses for which the fraction of four-image lenses (quad fraction) is quite high. We revisit the quad fraction among optical lenses by taking the selection function of the SQLS into account. We find that the current observed quad fraction in the SQLS is indeed lower than, but consistent with, the prediction of our theoretical model. The low quad fraction among optical lenses, together with the high quad fraction among radio lenses, implies that the quasar optical luminosity function has a relatively shallow faint end slope.

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10.1088/1367-2630/9/12/442