Discovery of Four Gravitationally Lensed Quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

Masamune Oguri, Naohisa Inada, Alejandro Clocchiatti, Issha Kayo, Min-Su Shin, Joseph F. Hennawi, Michael A. Strauss, Tomoki Morokuma, Donald P. Schneider, Donald G. York

Published 2007-08-07, updated 2007-11-25Version 2

We present the discovery of four gravitationally lensed quasars selected from the spectroscopic quasar catalog of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We describe imaging and spectroscopic follow-up observations that support the lensing interpretation of the following four quasars: SDSS J0832+0404 (image separation \theta=1.98", source redshift z_s=1.115, lens redshift z_l=0.659); SDSS J1216+3529 (\theta=1.49", z_s=2.012); SDSS J1322+1052 (\theta=2.00", z_s=1.716); and SDSS J1524+4409 (\theta=1.67", z_s=1.210, z_l=0.320). Each system has two lensed images. We find that the fainter image component of SDSS J0832+0404 is significantly redder than the brighter component, perhaps because of differential reddening by the lensing galaxy. The lens potential of SDSS J1216+3529 might be complicated by the presence of a secondary galaxy near the main lensing galaxy.