CSL-1: chance projection effect or serendipitous discovery of a gravitational lens induced by a cosmic string?
Abstract
The Capodimonte-Sternberg-Lens candidate no. 1 is an extragalactic double source detected in the Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte - Deep Field. It can be interpreted either as the chance alignment of two identical galaxies at z= 0.46 or as the first case of gravitational lensing by a cosmic string. Extensive modelling shows in fact that cosmic strings are the only type of lens which (at least at low angular resolution) can produce undistorted double images of a background source. We propose an experimentum crucis to disentangle these two possible explanations. If the lensing by a cosmic string should be confirmed, it would provide the first measurements of energy scale of symmetry breaking and of the energy scale of grand unified theory.
- Publication:
-
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Pub Date:
- August 2003
- DOI:
- 10.1046/j.1365-8711.2003.06568.x
- arXiv:
- arXiv:astro-ph/0302547
- Bibcode:
- 2003MNRAS.343..353S
- Keywords:
-
- gravitational lensing;
- galaxies: general;
- cosmology: miscellaneous;
- Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- Accepted for publication in the Mon. Not. Royal Astron. Society