A variable active galactic nucleus at z = 2.06 triply-imaged by the galaxy cluster MACS J0035.4−2015

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

Documents

  • stad1321

    Final published version, 2.03 MB, PDF document

  • Lukas J. Furtak
  • Ramesh Mainali
  • Adi Zitrin
  • Adèle Plat
  • Seiji Fujimoto
  • Megan Donahue
  • Erica J. Nelson
  • Franz E. Bauer
  • Ryosuke Uematsu
  • Gabriel B. Caminha
  • Felipe Andrade-Santos
  • Larry D. Bradley
  • Karina I. Caputi
  • Stéphane Charlot
  • Jacopo Chevallard
  • Dan Coe
  • Emma Curtis-Lake
  • Daniel Espada
  • Brenda L. Frye
  • Kirsten K. Knudsen
  • Anton M. Koekemoer
  • Kotaro Kohno
  • Vasily Kokorev
  • Nicolas Laporte
  • Minju M. Lee
  • Brian C. Lemaux
  • Keren Sharon
  • Daniel P. Stark
  • Yuanyuan Su
  • Katherine A. Suess
  • Yoshihiro Ueda
  • Hideki Umehata
  • Alba Vidal-García
  • John F. Wu

We report the discovery of a triply imaged active galactic nucleus (AGN), lensed by the galaxy cluster MACS J0035.4−2015 (z d = 0.352). The object is detected in Hubble Space Telescope imaging taken for the RELICS program. It appears to have a quasi-stellar nucleus consistent with a point-source, with a de-magnified radius of re ≲ 100 pc. The object is spectroscopically confirmed to be an AGN at z spec = 2.063 ± 0.005 showing broad rest-frame UV emission lines, and detected in both X-ray observations with Chandra and in ALCS ALMA band 6 (1.2 mm) imaging. It has a relatively faint rest-frame UV luminosity for a quasar-like object, MUV, 1450 = −19.7 ± 0.2. The object adds to just a few quasars or other X-ray sources known to be multiply lensed by a galaxy cluster. Some diffuse emission from the host galaxy is faintly seen around the nucleus, and there is a faint object nearby sharing the same multiple-imaging symmetry and geometric redshift, possibly an interacting galaxy or a star-forming knot in the host. We present an accompanying lens model, calculate the magnifications and time delays, and infer the physical properties of the source. We find the rest-frame UV continuum and emission lines to be dominated by the AGN, and the optical emission to be dominated by the host galaxy of modest stellar mass M✶ ≃ 109.2 M⊙. We also observe some variation in the AGN emission with time, which may suggest that the AGN used to be more active. This object adds a low-redshift counterpart to several relatively faint AGN recently uncovered at high redshifts with HST and JWST.

Original languageEnglish
JournalMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Volume522
Issue number4
Pages (from-to)5142-5151
Number of pages10
ISSN0035-8711
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jul 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society.

    Research areas

  • cosmology: observations, galaxies: clusters: individual: MACS J0035.4-2015, galaxies: nuclei, galaxies: Seyfert, gravitational lensing: strong, quasars

ID: 360969809