Gravitational Lensing in Herschel-ATLAS

Amber, Simon Neil (2015). Gravitational Lensing in Herschel-ATLAS. PhD thesis The Open University.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21954/ou.ro.0000ef80

Abstract

This thesis presents the samples and investigation of strong gravitational lenses identified with the Herschel Space Observatory using the H-ATLAS survey. A flux-limited lens candidate selection is applied to the complete H-ATLAS area, ~ 600deg2, and following the inspection of shallow optical and radio survey data the sources are classified into the predicted populations. A bootstrap analysis of the lens candidates is presented and compared to theoretical models which are in broad agreement and support a maximum magnification of the lensed sub-millimetre galaxy (SMG) population as μmax ~ 20-30.

Low resolution spectra, obtained from two cycles of observation at the New Technology Telescope (NTT), are reduced and analysed for 57 lens candidates. The distribution of estimated redshifts fail to support models predictions compiled from three different halo mass functions.

Finally, snapshots obtained as part of a collaborative Hubble Space Telescope (HST) campaign are reduced and the first lens models of isolated, robust lens counterparts are presented, which on their own provide compelling evidence that the majority of this sample are lensed by early-type galaxies at higher redshifts than existing gravitational lens surveys.

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