A conspicuous tangential alignment of galaxies in a STIS Parallel Shear Survey field: A new dark-lens candidate?

We report the serendipituous discovery of a conspicuous alignment of galaxies in a field obtained through the STIS Parallel Shear Survey. This project collects randomly distributed 50'' x 50'' fields to investigate the cosmic shear effect on this scale. Analyzing the parallel obs...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAstronomy and astrophysics (Berlin) Vol. 388; no. 1; pp. 68 - 73
Main Authors Miralles, J.-M., Erben, T., Hämmerle, H., Schneider, P., Fosbury, R. A. E., Freudling, W., Pirzkal, N., Jain, B., White, S. D. M.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published EDP Sciences 01.06.2002
Subjects
Sciences of the Universe
gravitational lensing
cosmology: observations
Astrophysics
dark matter
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Summary:We report the serendipituous discovery of a conspicuous alignment of galaxies in a field obtained through the STIS Parallel Shear Survey. This project collects randomly distributed 50'' x 50'' fields to investigate the cosmic shear effect on this scale. Analyzing the parallel observations having the Seyfert galaxy NGC 625 as primary target, we recognized over the whole field of view a strong apparent tangential alignment of galaxy ellipticities towards the image center. The field shows several arclet-like features typical for images of massive galaxy clusters, but no obvious over-density of bright foreground galaxies. We also find a multiple image candidate. On the basis of the possible strong and weak lensing effect within the data, we discuss whether this could be compatible with a massive halo with no clear optical counterpart. Based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, obtained at the Space Telescope Space Institute (STScI) which is operated by AURA Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555.
ISSN:0004-6361
1432-0746
1432-0756
DOI:10.1051/0004-6361:20020426