Quasar lenses in the south: searches over the DES public footprint

Abstract

ABSTRACT We have scanned 5000 deg2 of Southern Sky to search for strongly lensed quasars with five methods, all source oriented, but based on different assumptions and selection criteria. We present a list of high-grade candidates from each method (totalling 98 unique, new candidates), to facilitate follow-up spectroscopic campaigns, including two previously unknown quadruplets, WG 210014.9-445206.4 and WG 021416.37-210535.3. We analyse morphological searches based on Gaia multiplet detection and astrometric offsets, fibre-spectroscopic pre-selection, and X-ray and radio pre-selection. The performance and complementarity of the methods are evaluated on a common sample of known lenses in the Dark Energy Survey public Data Release 1 (DR1) footprint. We recovered in total 13 known lenses, of which 8 are quadruplets. Morphological and colour selection of objects, from the WISE andGaia-DR2 surveys, recovers most of those known lenses, but searches in the radio and X-ray cover regimes that are beyond the completeness of Gaia. Given the footprint, pre-selection, and depth limits, the current number of quads indicates that the union of these searches is complete, and the expected purity on high-grade candidates is ${\approx}60{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$. Ongoing, spectroscopic campaigns confirm this estimate.