A Mock Catalog of Gravitationally-lensed Quasars for the LSST Survey

Minghao Yue, Xiaohui Fan, Jinyi Yang, Feige Wang

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Scopus citations

Abstract

We present a mock catalog of gravitationally-lensed quasars at z qso < 7.5 with simulated images for the Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). We adopt recent measurements of quasar-luminosity functions to model the quasar population, and use the CosmoDC2 mock galaxy catalog to model the deflector galaxies, which successfully reproduces the observed galaxy-velocity dispersion functions up to z d ∼1.5. The mock catalog is highly complete for lensed quasars with Einstein radius θ E > 0.″07 and quasar absolute magnitude M i <-20. We estimate that there are ∼103 lensed quasars discoverable in current imaging surveys, and LSST will increase this number to ∼2.4 × 103. Most of the lensed quasars have image separation θ > 0.″5, which will at least be marginally resolved in LSST images with seeing of ∼0.″7. There will be ∼200 quadruply-lensed quasars discoverable in the LSST. The fraction of quad lenses among all discoverable lensed quasars is about ∼10%-15%, and this fraction decreases with survey depth. This mock catalog shows a large diversity in the observational features of lensed quasars, in terms of lensing separation and quasar-to-deflector flux ratio. We discuss possible strategies for a complete search of lensed quasars in the LSST era.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number139
JournalAstronomical Journal
Volume163
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 1 2022

Keywords

  • Gravitational lensing
  • Quasars

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Astronomy and Astrophysics
  • Space and Planetary Science

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