Strong Lensing at the Center of Abell 3827

LEE, H.; CARRASCO, R.; BERGMANN, M.; DIAZ, R.; GOMEZ, P.; MILLER, B.; TURNER, J.; WEST, M.

Los Angeles

Congreso; AAS Meeting #213; 2009

American Astronomical Society

We announce the discovery of features due to strong gravitational lensing of background sources near the center of the cluster Abell 3827 (z = 0.1). We have detected (a) "egg-like" images connected by a thin strand of light bracketing the northern part of the core, and (b) a thin arc to the southeast of the core. From optical imaging and spectroscopy obtained with GMOS at Gemini South, we show that the southeast arc is a background galaxy at redshift z = 0.4, and that one of the "eggs" is a background galaxy at redshift about 0.2. We speculate that the latter object is very close to the optical axis between observer, foreground cluster, and background source, and that there may in fact be four "egg" features forming an Einstein ring. Altogether, these features suggest that the total mass enclosed within about 100 kpc is greater than 5E13 solar masses.