分类： 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间： 2023-02-19
Patrick L. Kelly
Wenlei Chen
Amruth Alfred
Thomas J. Broadhurst
Jose M. Diego
Najmeh Emami
Alexei V. Filippenko
Allison Keen
Sung Kei Li
Jeremy Lim
Ashish K. Meena
Masamune Oguri
Claudia Scarlata
Tommaso Treu
Hayley Williams
Liliya L. R. Williams
Rui Zhou
Adi Zitrin
Ryan J. Foley
Saurabh W. Jha
摘要： Once only accessible in nearby galaxies, we can now study individual stars across much of the observable universe aided by galaxy-cluster gravitational lenses. When a star, compact object, or multiple such objects in the foreground galaxy-cluster lens become aligned, they can magnify a background individual star, and the timescale of a magnification peak can limit its size to tens of AU. The number and frequency of microlensing events therefore opens a window into the population of stars and compact objects, as well as high-redshift stars. To assemble the first statistical sample of stars in order to constrain the initial mass function (IMF) of massive stars at redshift z=0.7-1.5, the abundance of primordial black holes in galaxy-cluster dark matter, and the IMF of the stars making up the intracluster light, we are carrying out a 192-orbit program with the Hubble Space Telescope called "Flashlights," which is now two-thirds complete owing to scheduling challenges. We use the ultrawide F200LP and F350LP long-pass WFC3 UVIS filters and conduct two 16-orbit visits separated by one year. Having an identical roll angle during both visits, while difficult to schedule, yields extremely clean subtraction. Here we report the discovery of more than a dozen bright microlensing events, including multiple examples in the famous "Dragon Arc" discovered in the 1980s, as well as the "Spocks" and "Warhol" arcs that have hosted already known supergiants. The ultradeep observer-frame ultraviolet-through-optical imaging is sensitive to hot stars, which will complement deep James Webb Space Telescope infrared imaging. We are also acquiring Large Binocular Telescope LUCI and Keck-I MOSFIRE near-infrared spectra of the highly magnified arcs to constrain their recent star-formation histories.
分类： 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间： 2023-02-19
Wenlei Chen
Patrick L. Kelly
Tommaso Treu
Xin Wang
Guido Roberts-Borsani
Allison Keen
Rogier A. Windhorst
Rui Zhou
Marusa Bradac
Gabriel Brammer
Victoria Strait
Tom J. Broadhurst
Jose M. Diego
Brenda L. Frye
Ashish K. Meena
Adi Zitrin
Massimo Pascale
Marco Castellano
Danilo Marchesini
Takahiro Morishita
摘要： We report the discovery of an extremely magnified star at redshift $z=2.65$ in James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) NIRISS pre-imaging of the Abell 2744 galaxy-cluster field. The star's background host galaxy lies on a fold caustic of the foreground lens, and the cluster creates a pair of images of the region close to the lensed star. We identified the bright transient in one of the merging images at a distance of $\sim 0.15"$ from the critical curve, by subtracting the JWST F115W and F150W imaging from coadditions of archival Hubble Space Telescope (HST) F105W and F125W images and F140W and F160W images, respectively. Since the time delay between the two images should be only hours, the transient must be the microlensing event of an individual star, as opposed to a luminous stellar explosion which would persist for days to months. Analysis of individual exposures suggests that the star's magnification is not changing rapidly during the observations. From photometry of the point source through the F115W, F150W, and F200W filters, we identify a strong Balmer break, and modeling allows us to constrain the star's temperature to be approximately 7,000--12,000 K.
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