In a course of studying young galaxies at a distance
of 11.6 billion light years from Earth, a team of astronomers led by
Professor Yoshiaki Taniguchi (Ehime University) noticed a strangely
shaped galaxy that looks like a "magatama", an ancient, comma-shaped
Japanese amulet made of stone (Figure 1).
Subsequent research revealed that the magatama galaxy was actually an
overlapping system of two young galaxies lying in an extremely close
line of sight--an exceedingly rare occurrence among celestial objects.
The small angular separation between the foreground and background
galaxies gave the current team an opportunity to investigate the effect
of gravitational lensing on the properties of the background galaxy. A
member of the team, university student Yuya Nakahiro (Ehime University),
calculated that the effect of gravitational amplification would be 20%
at most. The foreground young galaxy is still forming, and the team
concluded that the gravitational lensing effect from such a young galaxy
does not affect the luminosity of its background galaxy.
Figure 1:
The imaging data taken with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) of LAE
221724+001716 (left). The shape of LAE 221724+001716 in the HST image is
peculiar and looks like a "magatama", an ancient Japanese amulet made
of stone (right). (Credit: Ehime University) |
The focus of the team's research was the young galaxy
LAE 221724+001716, which lies about 11.6 billion light years from
Earth. Team member Dr. Akio Inoue (Osaka Sangyo University) had made
observations with the Subaru Telescope's prime focus camera
(Suprime-Cam) and identified this galaxy as one of those emitting strong
ultraviolet radiation that ionizes hydrogen atoms (Note);
it is a Lyman-alpha emitter (LAE) and can provide important clues about
the progenitors of Milky-Way type galaxies. Although he noticed that
there was a separation between the galaxy itself and the emission point
of ionizing radiation, he concluded that this galaxy did not include the
effect of any foreground galaxies, given the negligible probability of
an overlapping foreground galaxy with such a small separation from its
background galaxy. However, another research team using Keck's Low
Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (LRIS) found that the radiation,
originally interpreted as ionizing radiation from LAE 221724+001716,
came from a foreground galaxy located about 9.9 billion light years from
Earth. Figure 2 shows the context for the images from the Subaru Telescope and HST in light of this revised interpretation.
a)  b)  a) Reference figure for the physical scales of the foreground and background galaxies. Using the physical scale of 10 kilo light years, the red lines represent the foreground galaxy while the blue lines represent the background galaxy. (Credit: Ehime University) b) The schematic view of LAE 221724+001716's shape (top) and imaging data taken with the Subaru Telescope (bottom left and middle) and the HST (bottom right). While both emissions detected in NB359 and NB497 images were originally thought to come from LAE 221724+001716, later observations revealed that most of the emission in NB359 comes from a foreground galaxy and that two distinct galaxies overlap and lie in an extremely close line of sight in the sky. 1 arcsecond (arcsec) is equal to 1/3600 of arc (part of a curve or circle). (Credit: Ehime University) |
Dr. Inoue expressed his surprise at the finding:
"This result was very amazing to me, since this is the discovery of an
extremely rare system." The finding sparked Professor Taniguchi's idea
for the current research: "Soon after I knew this observational result, I
became aware of the possibility that light from LAE 221724+001716 is
gravitationally amplified by the foreground galaxy".
According to Einstein's Theory of Relativity, when
light from an object in the distant universe travels close to a
foreground source, it bends and amplifies (or magnifies) the light from
the background object (Figure 3). This gravitational lensing effect facilitates the detection of faint objects not originally bright enough for detection.
a)
 b) 
Figure 3: Examples of gravitational lensing
a) Schematic view of how gravitational lensing works. If there is not a foreground gravitational source, the black lines show how the light travels from the distant object and reaches Earth. If a gravitational source lies between Earth and the distant object, the red lines show how the light path bends and travels around the gravitational source. As a result, the distant object is amplified and another path of light reaches us. (Credit: Ehime University) b) Schematic view of LAE 221724+001716's configuration. Due to the gravitational lensing effect, light from the actual location of background galaxy 11.6 billion light years distant from Earth bends around the foreground galaxy that is 9.9 billion light years distant. As a result, the red-filled star (separated by 0.6 arcseconds from the foreground galaxy) shows the position at which the background galaxy was observed. (Credit: Ehime University) |
However, it is important to know how large the
gravitational amplification is in order to estimate the object's
absolute luminosity, which relates to its stellar mass and formation
history. Team member Nakahiro performed most of the amplification
research as part of his university studies. Using observational data
from the Subaru Telescope, the team used three quantities for estimating
amplification to evaluate the mass of the foreground galaxy: 1) the
distance from Earth to the background galaxy, 2) the distance between
the foreground and background galaxies, and 3) the angular separation
between the two galaxies.
The team found that the stellar mass of the
foreground object was about a billion solar masses, which corresponds to
only one percent of our Milky Way's mass (Figure 4).
Figure 4:
The relationship between the gravitational amplification factor and the
stellar mass of the foreground galaxy. The red vertical line represents
the upper limit of the estimated stellar mass, which provides an upper
limit to the gravitational amplification. (Credit: Ehime University) |
The estimated stellar mass is rather small among the
galaxies in the Universe, and its gravitational amplification is only
about 20% at most. The foreground galaxy is still forming, and its
stellar mass is increasing. The team concluded that the gravitational
lensing effect from such young, forming galaxy does not significantly
affect the luminosity of any background galaxies.
Nakahiro looks forward to future research in this
area with great enthusiasm: "In this research, we have analyzed the
gravitational amplification for only one object. Thus far, we have found
similar objects in the literature, so I will evaluate the gravitational
lens effects of these objects and tackle the challenging questions of
our Universe."
References:
These results are published in the April 1st 2013 issue of the Astrophysical Journal, as "A Gravitational Lens Model for the Lya Emitter, LAE 221724+001716 at z=3.1 in the SSA 22 Field", Y. Nakahiro, Y. Taniguchi, A. K. Inoue, Y. Shioya, M. Kajisawa, M. A. R. Kobayashi, I. Iwata, Y. Matsuda, T. Hayashino, A. R. Tanaka, & K. Hamada.
These results are published in the April 1st 2013 issue of the Astrophysical Journal, as "A Gravitational Lens Model for the Lya Emitter, LAE 221724+001716 at z=3.1 in the SSA 22 Field", Y. Nakahiro, Y. Taniguchi, A. K. Inoue, Y. Shioya, M. Kajisawa, M. A. R. Kobayashi, I. Iwata, Y. Matsuda, T. Hayashino, A. R. Tanaka, & K. Hamada.
Members of the research team are:
- Yuya Nakahiro (Ehime University)
- Yoshiaki Taniguchi (Ehime University)
- Akio K. Inoue (Osaka Sangyo University)
- Yasuhiro Shioya (Ehime University)
- Masaru Kajisawa (Ehime University)
- Masakazu A. R. Kobayashi (Ehime University)
- Ikuru Iwata (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan)
- Yuichi Matsuda (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan)
- Yuki Hayashino (Tohoku University)
- Ayaka R. Tanaka (Ehime University)
- Katsuhiko Hamada (Ehime University)
Acknowledgements:
This research was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
(Nos. 17253001, 19340046, 23244031, 23654068, 23684010, and 24244018).
This research was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
(Nos. 17253001, 19340046, 23244031, 23654068, 23684010, and 24244018).
Notes:
For more information, refer to the February 24, 2009 Subaru Telescope (Science Results) Press Release "Strong UV Radiation Detected in the Most Distant Galaxies". The imaging data of LAE 221724+001716 taken by the Subaru Telescope are shown in the middle-left panel of Figure 3.
