1999/08/05 by Rodrigo Ibata, Rodrigo A. Ibata, Geraint F. Lewis +6
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Brightness #CCD and CMOS Imaging Sensors #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Gravitational lens #Luminosity #Physics #Quasar #Redshift #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #Surface brightness #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/301111
21 pages, 5 figures (2 as GIF files); accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal
arxiv created 1999/08/05 · openalex publication_date 1999/11/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We present a suite of observations of the recently identified ultraluminous BAL quasar APM 08279+5255, taken both in the infra-red with the NICMOS high resolution camera on board the Hubble Space Telescope, and at 3.5cm with the Very Large Array. With an inferred luminosity of ~5x1015 Solar luminosities, APM 08279+5255 is apparently the most luminous system known. Extant ground-based images show that APM 08279+5255 is not point-like, but is instead separated into two components, indicative of gravitational lensing. The much higher resolution images presented here also reveal two point sources, A and B, of almost equal brightness (fB/fA=0.782 +/- 0.010), separated by 0."378 +/- 0."001, as well as a third, previously unknown, fainter image, C, seen between the brighter images. While the nature of C is not fully determined, several lines of evidence point to it being a third gravitationally lensed image of the quasar, rather than being the lensing galaxy. Simple models which recover the relative image configuration and brightnesses are presented. While proving to be substantially amplified, APM 08279+5255 possesses an intrinsic bolometric luminosity of ~1014 to 1015 Solar luminosities and remains amongst the most luminous objects known.