Researchers confirmed the existence of three new gravitationally lensed quasars using data from the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program (HSC-SSP). These lensed quasars are interesting phenomena where the immense gravitational pull of a foreground galaxy bends and magnifies the light of the more distant quasar, creating multiple images of it. This discovery includes systems with separations ranging from 0.85 to 2.26 arcseconds, and redshifts indicating significant distances. The identification and analysis of these systems were enhanced by advanced imaging techniques and follow-up spectroscopy, which not only confirmed the lensing effect but also provided detailed characterizations of the galaxies and quasars involved. These findings add valuable examples to the catalog of known lensed quasars, which are key tools for probing dark matter, studying quasar properties, and refining our measurements of the universe’s expansion rate. This study involves combining deep, wide-field imaging with follow-up observations to confirm they are in fact gravitational lenses.

Reference paper: https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stab145