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The COSMOS-Web Lens Survey (COWLS) I: discovery of >100 high redshift strong lenses in contiguous JWST imaging

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Title: The COSMOS-Web Lens Survey (COWLS) I: discovery of >100 high redshift strong lenses in contiguous JWST imaging
Authors: James W Nightingale, Guillaume Mahler, Jacqueline McCleary, Qiuhan He, Natalie B Hogg, Aristeidis Amvrosiadis, Ghassem Gozaliasl, Wilfried Mercier, Diana Scognamiglio, Edward Berman, Gavin Leroy, Daizhong Liu, Richard J Massey, Marko Shuntov, Maximilian von Wietersheim-Kramsta, Maximilien Franco, Louise Paquereau, Olivier Ilbert, Natalie Allen, Sune Toft, Hollis B Akins, Caitlin M Casey, Jeyhan S Kartaltepe, Anton M Koekemoer, Henry Joy McCracken, Jason D Rhodes, Brant E Robertson, Nicole E Drakos, Andreas L Faisst, Shuowen Jin
Contributors: POTHIER, Nathalie
Source: Nightingale, J W, Mahler, G, Mccleary, J, He, Q, Hogg, N B, Amvrosiadis, A, Gozaliasl, G, Mercier, W, Scognamiglio, D, Berman, E, Leroy, G, Liu, D, Massey, R J, Shuntov, M, von Wietersheim-Kramsta, M, Franco, M, Paquereau, L, Ilbert, O, Allen, N, Toft, S, Akins, H B, Casey, C M, Kartaltepe, J S, Koekemoer, A M, Mccracken, H J, Rhodes, J D, Robertson, B E, Drakos, N E, Faisst, A L & Jin, S 2025, ' The COSMOS-Web Lens Survey (COWLS) I : discovery of >100 high redshift strong lenses in contiguous JWST imaging ', Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 543, no. 1, pp. 203-222 . https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staf1253
Publication Status: Preprint
Publisher Information: Oxford University Press (OUP), 2025.
Publication Year: 2025
Subject Terms: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO), Astrophysics of Galaxies, Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA), Dark matter, FOS: Physical sciences, Astroparticle physics, [PHYS.ASTR] Physics [physics]/Astrophysics [astro-ph], strong [Gravitational lensing], Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Description: We present the COSMOS-Web Lens Survey (COWLS), a sample of over 100 strong lens candidates from the 0.54 deg$^2$ COSMOS-Web survey, discovered using exquisite James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) imaging across four wavebands. Following two rounds of visual inspection, over 100 candidates were ranked as ‘high confidence’ or ‘likely’ by at least 50 per cent of inspectors. The COWLS sample has several notable properties: (i) magnified source galaxies spanning redshifts $z \sim 0.1$ to $z \sim 9$, which therefore extend into the epoch of reionization; (ii) the highest-redshift lens galaxies known, pushing galaxy density profile evolution studies beyond $z \sim 2$; (iii) all lenses are distributed within a contiguous 0.54 deg$^2$ region, allowing for joint strong and weak lensing analyses; and (iv) a subset exhibits lensed source emission ray-traced near the lens galaxy centres, enabling studies of supermassive black holes and dust absorption. A key innovation of our approach is the use of lens modelling to aid in identifying lenses that may otherwise be missed. This paper is accompanied by the first COWLS public release, providing JWST NIRCam imaging in four bands, lens models, pixelized source reconstructions and lens redshift estimates.
Document Type: Article
File Description: application/pdf
Language: English
ISSN: 1365-2966
0035-8711
DOI: 10.1093/mnras/staf1253
DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2503.08777
Access URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2503.08777
https://curis.ku.dk/ws/files/497273206/staf1253.pdf
https://hal.science/hal-05007975v1
https://hal.science/hal-05007975v1/document
https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staf1253
Rights: CC BY
Accession Number: edsair.doi.dedup.....14a18b4be600846472f2988103b18288
Database: OpenAIRE
Description
Abstract:We present the COSMOS-Web Lens Survey (COWLS), a sample of over 100 strong lens candidates from the 0.54 deg$^2$ COSMOS-Web survey, discovered using exquisite James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) imaging across four wavebands. Following two rounds of visual inspection, over 100 candidates were ranked as ‘high confidence’ or ‘likely’ by at least 50 per cent of inspectors. The COWLS sample has several notable properties: (i) magnified source galaxies spanning redshifts $z \sim 0.1$ to $z \sim 9$, which therefore extend into the epoch of reionization; (ii) the highest-redshift lens galaxies known, pushing galaxy density profile evolution studies beyond $z \sim 2$; (iii) all lenses are distributed within a contiguous 0.54 deg$^2$ region, allowing for joint strong and weak lensing analyses; and (iv) a subset exhibits lensed source emission ray-traced near the lens galaxy centres, enabling studies of supermassive black holes and dust absorption. A key innovation of our approach is the use of lens modelling to aid in identifying lenses that may otherwise be missed. This paper is accompanied by the first COWLS public release, providing JWST NIRCam imaging in four bands, lens models, pixelized source reconstructions and lens redshift estimates.
ISSN:13652966
00358711
DOI:10.1093/mnras/staf1253