Hubble imaging excludes cosmic string lens
Abstract
The galaxy image pair Capodimonte-Sternberg-Lens Candidate no. 1 (CSL-1) has been a leading candidate for a cosmic string lens. High quality imaging data from the Hubble Space Telescope presented here show that it is not a lens but a pair of galaxies. The galaxies show different orientations of their principal axes, not consistent with any lens model. We present a new direct test of the straight-string lens model, using a displaced difference of the image from itself to exclude CSL-1 at high confidence.
- Publication:
-
Physical Review D
- Pub Date:
- April 2006
- DOI:
- 10.1103/PhysRevD.73.087302
- arXiv:
- arXiv:astro-ph/0603838
- Bibcode:
- 2006PhRvD..73h7302A
- Keywords:
-
- 98.80.Cq;
- 98.65.At;
- Particle-theory and field-theory models of the early Universe;
- Interacting galaxies;
- galaxy pairs and triples;
- Astrophysics;
- High Energy Physics - Theory
- E-Print:
- 3 pages, 2 figures. Higher quality versions of figures are available online. Bibliography modified. Accepted as a brief report to Phys. Rev. D