iPTF16geu: A multiply imaged, gravitationally lensed type Ia supernova

Oct 31, 2016
24 pages
Published in:
  • Science 356 (2017) 291-295
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Abstract: (arXiv)
We report the discovery of a multiply-imaged gravitationally lensed Type Ia supernova, iPTF16geu (SN 2016geu), at redshift z=0.409z=0.409. This phenomenon could be identified because the light from the stellar explosion was magnified more than fifty times by the curvature of space around matter in an intervening galaxy. We used high spatial resolution observations to resolve four images of the lensed supernova, approximately 0.3" from the center of the foreground galaxy. The observations probe a physical scale of \sim1 kiloparsec, smaller than what is typical in other studies of extragalactic gravitational lensing. The large magnification and symmetric image configuration implies close alignment between the line-of-sight to the supernova and the lens. The relative magnifications of the four images provide evidence for sub-structures in the lensing galaxy.
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