Microlensing variability in time-delay quasars.pdfVIP

a r X i v : a s t r o - p h / 0 6 0 7 1 3 3 v 1 7 J u l 2 0 0 6 Astronomy Astrophysics manuscript no. paraficz c? ESO 2008 February 5, 2008 Microlensing variability in time-delay quasars Danuta Paraficz 1,2 , Jens Hjorth 1 , Ingunn Burud 3 , Pa?ll Jakobsson 1 , and A?rd??s El??asdo?ttir 1 1 Dark Cosmology Centre, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Juliane Maries Vej 30, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark e-mail: danutas@astro.ku.dk 2 Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT), Apartado 474, 38700 Santa Cruz de La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain 3 Norwegian Meteorological Institute, P.O. Box 43, Blindern, N-031 3 Oslo, Norway Received March 26, 2006 ABSTRACT We have searched for microlensing variability in the light curves of five gravitationally lensed quasars with well-determined time delays: SBS 1520+530, FBQ 0951+2635, RX J0911+0551, B1600+434 and HE 2149?2745. By comparing the light curve of the leading image with a suitably time offset light curve of a trailing image we find that two (SBS 1520+530 and FBQ 0951+2635) out of the five quasars have significant long-term (～years) and short-term (～100 days) brightness variations that may be attributed to microlensing. The short-term variations may be due to nanolenses 10 ?4 –10 ?3 M⊙, relativistic hot or cold spots in the quasar accretion disks, or coherent microlensing at large optical depth. Key words. gravitational lensing – quasars: individual: SBS 1520+530, FBQ 0951+2635, RX J0911+0551, B1600+434, HE 2149-2745 1. Introduction The effect of a background source being gravitationally lensed by foreground compact objects is known as microlensing. Chang Refsdal (1979) predicted that in lensed quasar sys- tems the light path should be affected by stars in the lens- ing galaxy. Moving compact objects in the lensing galaxy can cause spectral changes, brightness variability and, in the case of multiple images, flux ratio anomalies in the lensed quasar. When the foreground galaxy causes multiple images of the quasar, photom