Multiply imaged quasi-stellar objects in the Gaia survey

¹ Extragalactic Astrophysics and Space Observations (AEOS), Institut d’Astrophysique et de Géophysique, Liège University, Allée du 6 Août, 17 (Sart Tilman, Bât. B5c), 4000 Liège, Belgium
² National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), 650 N. A’ohoku Place, Hilo, 96720 HI, USA
e-mail: finet@naoj.org

Received: 26 November 2014
Accepted: 9 October 2015

Abstract

Aims. We report a study on the statistical properties of the multiply imaged quasi-stellar objects (QSOs) to be detected within the Gaia survey.

Methods. We considered two types of potential deflectors, the singular isothermal sphere (SIS) and the singular isothermal ellipsoid (SIE), to estimate the number of multiply imaged quasars as well as the normalized distributions of the redshifts of the lensed sources and of their associated deflectors. We also investigated the distribution of the lensing events as a function of their angular size and apparent magnitude. We compared the Gaia survey for multiply imaged quasars to typical ground-based surveys and to an ideal survey that would be carried out with a perfect instrument from space.

Results. Of the 6.64 × 10⁵ QSOs brighter than G = 20 to be detected by Gaia, we expect the discovery of about 2886 multiply imaged sources, 450 of which are expected to be produced by a late-type galaxy. We expect only ~1600 of these multiply imaged quasars to have an angular separation between their images that is large enough to be resolved from seeing-limited observations, and ~80 of them to have more than two lensed images.