Do Quasars Lens Quasars?

Abstract

If the unexpectedly high frequency of quasar pairs with very different component redshifts is due to the lensing of a population of background quasars by the foreground quasar, typical lens masses must be $\sim10^{12}M_{\sun}$ and the sum of all such quasar lenses would have to contain $\sim0.005$ times the closure density of the Universe. It then seems plausible that a very high fraction of all $\sim10^{12} M_{\sun}$ gravitational lenses with redshifts $z\sim1$ contain quasars. Here I propose that these systems have evolved to form the present population of massive galaxies with M$_{\rm B}\leq-22$ and $M >5\times10^{11} M_{\sun}$.