Uncovering a population of gravitational lens galaxies with magnified standard candle SN Zwicky

Goobar, A, Johansson, J, Schulze, S, Arendse, N, Carracedo, AS, Dhawan, S, Mörtsell, E, Fremling, C, Yan, L, Perley, D, Sollerman, J, Joseph, R, Hinds, KR, Meynardie, W, Andreoni, I, Bellm, E, Bloom, J, Collett, TE, Drake, A, Graham, M et al (2023) Uncovering a population of gravitational lens galaxies with magnified standard candle SN Zwicky. Nature Astronomy, 7 (9). pp. 1098-1107. ISSN 2397-3366

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Abstract

Detecting gravitationally lensed supernovae is among the biggest challenges in astronomy. It involves a combination of two very rare phenomena: catching the transient signal of a stellar explosion in a distant galaxy and observing it through a nearly perfectly aligned foreground galaxy that deflects light towards the observer. Here we describe how high-cadence optical observations with the Zwicky Transient Facility, with its unparalleled large field of view, led to the detection of a multiply imaged type Ia supernova, SN Zwicky, also known as SN 2022qmx. Magnified nearly 25-fold, the system was found thanks to the standard candle nature of type Ia supernovae. High-spatial-resolution imaging with the Keck telescope resolved four images of the supernova with very small angular separation, corresponding to an Einstein radius of only θ E = 0.167″ and almost identical arrival times. The small θ E and faintness of the lensing galaxy are very unusual, highlighting the importance of supernovae to fully characterize the properties of galaxy-scale gravitational lenses, including the impact of galaxy substructures.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Cosmology; General relativity and gravity; Time-domain astronomy
Subjects:	Q Science > QB Astronomy Q Science > QC Physics
Divisions:	Astrophysics Research Institute
Publisher:	Nature Publishing Group
Date of acceptance:	24 April 2023
Date of first compliant Open Access:	3 January 2024
Date Deposited:	03 Jan 2024 16:07
Last Modified:	07 Nov 2024 16:30
DOI or ID number:	10.1038/s41550-023-01981-3
URI:	https://ljmu-9.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/22159

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