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K. Honscheid

Publications and source records attributed to K. Honscheid.

At least 541 records · Page 30Linked to original sources

SDSS-IV eBOSS emission-line galaxy pilot survey

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV extended Baryonic Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (SDSS-IV/eBOSS) will observe 195,000 emission-line galaxies (ELGs) to measure the Baryonic Acoustic Oscillation standard ruler (BAO) at redshift 0.9. To test different ELG selection algorithms, 9,000 spectra were observed with the SDSS spectrograph as a pilot survey based on data from several imaging surveys. First, using visual inspection and redshift quality flags, we show that the automated spectroscopic redshifts assigned by the pipeline meet the quality requirements for a reliable BAO measurement. We also show the correlations between sky emission, signal-to-noise ratio in the emission lines, and redshift error. Then we provide a detailed description of each target selection algorithm we tested and compare them with the requirements of the eBOSS experiment. As a result, we provide reliable redshift distributions for the different target selection schemes we tested. Finally, we determine an target selection algorithms that is best suited to be applied on DECam photometry because they fulfill the eBOSS survey efficiency requirements.

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The redMaPPer Galaxy Cluster Catalog From DES Science Verification Data

We describe updates to the \redmapper{} algorithm, a photometric red-sequence cluster finder specifically designed for large photometric surveys. The updated algorithm is applied to $150\,\mathrm{deg}^2$ of Science Verification (SV) data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES), and to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) DR8 photometric data set. The DES SV catalog is locally volume limited, and contains 786 clusters with richness $λ>20$ (roughly equivalent to $M_{\rm{500c}}\gtrsim10^{14}\,h_{70}^{-1}\,M_{\odot}$) and $0.2<z<0.9$. The DR8 catalog consists of 26311 clusters with $0.08<z<0.6$, with a sharply increasing richness threshold as a function of redshift for $z\gtrsim 0.35$. The photometric redshift performance of both catalogs is shown to be excellent, with photometric redshift uncertainties controlled at the $σ_z/(1+z)\sim 0.01$ level for $z\lesssim0.7$, rising to $\sim0.02$ at $z\sim0.9$ in DES SV. We make use of \emph{Chandra} and \emph{XMM} X-ray and South Pole Telescope Sunyaev-Zeldovich data to show that the centering performance and mass--richness scatter are consistent with expectations based on prior runs of \redmapper{} on SDSS data. We also show how the \redmapper{} \photoz{} and richness estimates are relatively insensitive to imperfect star/galaxy separation and small-scale star masks.

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Testing the lognormality of the galaxy and weak lensing convergence distributions from Dark Energy Survey maps

It is well known that the probability distribution function (PDF) of galaxy density contrast is approximately lognormal; whether the PDF of mass fluctuations derived from weak lensing convergence (kappa_WL) is lognormal is less well established. We derive PDFs of the galaxy and projected matter density distributions via the Counts in Cells (CiC) method. We use maps of galaxies and weak lensing convergence produced from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) Science Verification data over 139 deg^2. We test whether the underlying density contrast is well described by a lognormal distribution for the galaxies, the convergence and their joint PDF. We confirm that the galaxy density contrast distribution is well modeled by a lognormal PDF convolved with Poisson noise at angular scales from 10-40 arcmin (corresponding to physical scales of 3-10 Mpc). We note that as kappa_WL is a weighted sum of the mass fluctuations along the line of sight, its PDF is expected to be only approximately lognormal. We find that the kappa_WL distribution is well modeled by a lognormal PDF convolved with Gaussian shape noise at scales between 10 and 20 arcmin, with a best-fit chi^2/DOF of 1.11 compared to 1.84 for a Gaussian model, corresponding to p-values 0.35 and 0.07 respectively, at a scale of 10 arcmin. Above 20 arcmin a simple Gaussian model is sufficient. The joint PDF is also reasonably fitted by a bivariate lognormal. As a consistency check we compare the variances derived from the lognormal modelling with those directly measured via CiC. Our methods are validated against maps from the MICE Grand Challenge N-body simulation.

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Crowdsourcing quality control for Dark Energy Survey images

We have developed a crowdsourcing web application for image quality control employed by the Dark Energy Survey. Dubbed the "DES exposure checker", it renders science-grade images directly to a web browser and allows users to mark problematic features from a set of predefined classes. Users can also generate custom labels and thus help identify previously unknown problem classes. User reports are fed back to hardware and software experts to help mitigate and eliminate recognized issues. We report on the implementation of the application and our experience with its over 100 users, the majority of which are professional or prospective astronomers but not data management experts. We discuss aspects of user training and engagement, and demonstrate how problem reports have been pivotal to rapidly correct artifacts which would likely have been too subtle or infrequent to be recognized otherwise. We conclude with a number of important lessons learned, suggest possible improvements, and recommend this collective exploratory approach for future astronomical surveys or other extensive data sets with a sufficiently large user base. We also release open-source code of the web application and host an online demo version at http://des-exp-checker.pmelchior.net

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Galaxy bias from the Dark Energy Survey Science Verification data: combining galaxy density maps and weak lensing maps

We measure the redshift evolution of galaxy bias for a magnitude-limited galaxy sample by combining the galaxy density maps and weak lensing shear maps for a $\sim$116 deg$^{2}$ area of the Dark Energy Survey (DES) Science Verification data. This method was first developed in Amara et al. (2012) and later re-examined in a companion paper (Pujol et al. 2016) with rigorous simulation tests and analytical treatment of tomographic measurements. In this work we apply this method to the DES SV data and measure the galaxy bias for a i$<$22.5 galaxy sample. We find the galaxy bias and 1$σ$ error bars in 4 photometric redshift bins to be 1.12$\pm$0.19 (z=0.2-0.4), 0.97$\pm$0.15 (z=0.4-0.6), 1.38$\pm$0.39 (z=0.6-0.8)), and 1.45$\pm$0.56 (z=0.8-1.0). These measurements are consistent at the 2$σ$ level with measurements on the same dataset using galaxy clustering and cross-correlation of galaxies with CMB lensing, with most of the redshift bins consistent within the 1σ error bars. In addition, our method provides the only $σ_8$-independent constraint among the three. We forward-model the main observational effects using mock galaxy catalogs by including shape noise, photo-z errors and masking effects. We show that our bias measurement from the data is consistent with that expected from simulations. With the forthcoming full DES data set, we expect this method to provide additional constraints on the galaxy bias measurement from more traditional methods. Furthermore, in the process of our measurement, we build up a 3D mass map that allows further exploration of the dark matter distribution and its relation to galaxy evolution.

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The DES Science Verification Weak Lensing Shear Catalogues

We present weak lensing shear catalogues for 139 square degrees of data taken during the Science Verification (SV) time for the new Dark Energy Camera (DECam) being used for the Dark Energy Survey (DES). We describe our object selection, point spread function estimation and shear measurement procedures using two independent shear pipelines, IM3SHAPE and NGMIX, which produce catalogues of 2.12 million and 3.44 million galaxies respectively. We detail a set of null tests for the shear measurements and find that they pass the requirements for systematic errors at the level necessary for weak lensing science applications using the SV data. We also discuss some of the planned algorithmic improvements that will be necessary to produce sufficiently accurate shear catalogues for the full 5-year DES, which is expected to cover 5000 square degrees.

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Galaxy Populations in Massive Galaxy Clusters to z=1.1: Color Distribution, Concentration, Halo Occupation Number and Red Sequence Fraction

We study the galaxy populations in 74 Sunyaev Zeldovich Effect (SZE) selected clusters from the South Pole Telescope (SPT) survey that have been imaged in the science verification phase of the Dark Energy Survey (DES). The sample extends up to $z\sim 1.1$ with $4 \times 10^{14} M_{\odot}\le M_{200}\le 3\times 10^{15} M_{\odot}$. Using the band containing the 4000~Å break and its redward neighbor, we study the color-magnitude distributions of cluster galaxies to $\sim m_*+2$, finding: (1) the intrinsic rest frame $g-r$ color width of the red sequence (RS) population is $\sim$0.03 out to $z\sim0.85$ with a preference for an increase to $\sim0.07$ at $z=1$ and (2) the prominence of the RS declines beyond $z\sim0.6$. The spatial distribution of cluster galaxies is well described by the NFW profile out to $4R_{200}$ with a concentration of $c_{\mathrm{g}} = 3.59^{+0.20}_{-0.18}$, $5.37^{+0.27}_{-0.24}$ and $1.38^{+0.21}_{-0.19}$ for the full, the RS and the blue non-RS populations, respectively, but with $\sim40$\% to 55\% cluster to cluster variation and no statistically significant redshift or mass trends. The number of galaxies within the virial region $N_{200}$ exhibits a mass trend indicating that the number of galaxies per unit total mass is lower in the most massive clusters, and shows no significant redshift trend. The red sequence (RS) fraction within $R_{200}$ is $(68\pm3)$\% at $z=0.46$, varies from $\sim$55\% at $z=1$ to $\sim$80\% at $z=0.1$, and exhibits intrinsic variation among clusters of $\sim14$\%. We discuss a model that suggests the observed redshift trend in RS fraction favors a transformation timescale for infalling field galaxies to become RS galaxies of 2 to 3~Gyr.

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Cosmology constraints from shear peak statistics in Dark Energy Survey Science Verification data

Shear peak statistics has gained a lot of attention recently as a practical alternative to the two point statistics for constraining cosmological parameters. We perform a shear peak statistics analysis of the Dark Energy Survey (DES) Science Verification (SV) data, using weak gravitational lensing measurements from a 139 deg$^2$ field. We measure the abundance of peaks identified in aperture mass maps, as a function of their signal-to-noise ratio, in the signal-to-noise range $0<\mathcal S / \mathcal N<4$. To predict the peak counts as a function of cosmological parameters we use a suite of $N$-body simulations spanning 158 models with varying $Ω_{\rm m}$ and $σ_8$, fixing $w = -1$, $Ω_{\rm b} = 0.04$, $h = 0.7$ and $n_s=1$, to which we have applied the DES SV mask and redshift distribution. In our fiducial analysis we measure $σ_{8}(Ω_{\rm m}/0.3)^{0.6}=0.77 \pm 0.07$, after marginalising over the shear multiplicative bias and the error on the mean redshift of the galaxy sample. We introduce models of intrinsic alignments, blending, and source contamination by cluster members. These models indicate that peaks with $\mathcal S / \mathcal N>4$ would require significant corrections, which is why we do not include them in our analysis. We compare our results to the cosmological constraints from the two point analysis on the SV field and find them to be in good agreement in both the central value and its uncertainty. We discuss prospects for future peak statistics analysis with upcoming DES data.

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Assessment of Systematic Chromatic Errors that Impact Sub-1% Photometric Precision in Large-Area Sky Surveys

Meeting the science goals for many current and future ground-based optical large-area sky surveys requires that the calibrated broadband photometry is stable in time and uniform over the sky to 1% precision or better. Past surveys have achieved photometric precision of 1-2% by calibrating the survey's stellar photometry with repeated measurements of a large number of stars observed in multiple epochs. The calibration techniques employed by these surveys only consider the relative frame-by-frame photometric zeropoint offset and the focal plane position-dependent illumination corrections, which are independent of the source color. However, variations in the wavelength dependence of the atmospheric transmission and the instrumental throughput induce source color-dependent systematic errors. These systematic errors must also be considered to achieve the most precise photometric measurements. In this paper, we examine such systematic chromatic errors using photometry from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) as an example. We define a natural magnitude system for DES and calculate the systematic errors on stellar magnitudes, when the atmospheric transmission and instrumental throughput deviate from the natural system. We conclude that the systematic chromatic errors caused by the change of airmass in each exposure, the change of the precipitable water vapor and aerosol in the atmosphere over time, and the non-uniformity of instrumental throughput over the focal plane, can be up to 2% in some bandpasses. We compare the calculated systematic chromatic errors with the observed DES data. For the test sample data, we correct these errors using measurements of the atmospheric transmission and instrumental throughput. The residual after correction is less than 0.3%. We also find that the errors for non-stellar objects are redshift-dependent and can be larger than those for stars at certain redshifts.

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A Dark Energy Camera Search for an Optical Counterpart to the First Advanced LIGO Gravitational Wave Event GW150914

We report initial results of a deep search for an optical counterpart to the gravitational wave event GW150914, the first trigger from the Advanced LIGO gravitational wave detectors. We used the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) to image a 102 deg$^2$ area, corresponding to 38% of the initial trigger high-probability sky region and to 11% of the revised high-probability region. We observed in i and z bands at 4-5, 7, and 24 days after the trigger. The median $5σ$ point-source limiting magnitudes of our search images are i=22.5 and z=21.8 mag. We processed the images through a difference-imaging pipeline using templates from pre-existing Dark Energy Survey data and publicly available DECam data. Due to missing template observations and other losses, our effective search area subtends 40 deg$^{2}$, corresponding to 12% total probability in the initial map and 3% of the final map. In this area, we search for objects that decline significantly between days 4-5 and day 7, and are undetectable by day 24, finding none to typical magnitude limits of i= 21.5,21.1,20.1 for object colors (i-z)=1,0,-1, respectively. Our search demonstrates the feasibility of a dedicated search program with DECam and bodes well for future research in this emerging field.

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A Dark Energy Camera Search for Missing Supergiants in the LMC After the Advanced LIGO Gravitational Wave Event GW150914

The collapse of the core of a star is expected to produce gravitational radiation. While this process will usually produce a luminous supernova, the optical signatue could be subluminous and a direct collapse to a black hole, with the star just disappearing, is possible. The gravitational wave event GW150914 reported by the LIGO Virgo Collaboration (LVC) on 2015 September 16, was detected by a burst analysis and whose high probability spatial localization included the Large Magellanic Cloud. Shortly after the announcement of the event, we used the Dark Energy Camera to observe 102 deg$^2$ of the localization area, including a 38 deg$^2$ area centered on the LMC. Using a catalog of 152 LMC luminous red supergiants, candidates to undergo a core collapse without a visible supernova, we find that the positions of 144 of these are inside our images, and that all are detected - none have disappeared. There are other classes of candidates: we searched existing catalogs of red supergiants, yellow supergiants, Wolf-Rayet stars, and luminous blue variable stars, recovering all that were inside the imaging area. Based on our observations, we conclude that it is unlikely that GW150914 was caused by the core collapse of a supergiant in the LMC, consistent with the LIGO Collaboration analyses of the gravitational wave form as best described by a binary black hole merger. We discuss how to generalize this search for future very nearby core collapse candidates.

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Discovery of a Stellar Overdensity in Eridanus-Phoenix in the Dark Energy Survey

We report the discovery of an excess of main sequence turn-off stars in the direction of the constellations of Eridanus and Phoenix from the first year data of the Dark Energy Survey (DES). The Eridanus-Phoenix (EriPhe) overdensity is centered around l~285 deg and b~-60 deg and spans at least 30 deg in longitude and 10 deg in latitude. The Poisson significance of the detection is at least 9 sigma. The stellar population in the overdense region is similar in brightness and color to that of the nearby globular cluster NGC 1261, indicating that the heliocentric distance of EriPhe is about d~16 kpc. The extent of EriPhe in projection is therefore at least ~4 kpc by ~3 kpc. On the sky, this overdensity is located between NGC 1261 and a new stellar stream discovered by DES at a similar heliocentric distance, the so-called Phoenix Stream. Given their similar distance and proximity to each other, it is possible that these three structures may be kinematically associated. Alternatively, the EriPhe overdensity is morphologically similar to the Virgo overdensity and the Hercules-Aquila cloud, which also lie at a similar Galactocentric distance. These three overdensities lie along a polar plane separated by ~120 deg and may share a common origin. Spectroscopic follow-up observations of the stars in EriPhe are required to fully understand the nature of this overdensity.

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The Phoenix stream: a cold stream in the Southern hemisphere

We report the discovery of a stellar stream in the Dark Energy Survey (DES) Year 1 (Y1A1) data. The discovery was made through simple color-magnitude filters and visual inspection of the Y1A1 data. We refer to this new object as the Phoenix stream, after its resident constellation. After subtraction of the background stellar population we detect a clear signal of a simple stellar population. By fitting the ridge line of the stream in color-magnitude space, we find that a stellar population with age $τ=11.5\pm0.5$ Gyr and $[Fe/H]<-1.6$ located 17.5$\pm$0.9 kpc from the Sun gives an adequate description of the stream stellar population. The stream is detected over an extension of 8$^{\circ}.$1 (2.5 kpc) and has a width of $\sim$54 pc assuming a Gaussian profile, indicating that a globular cluster is a probable progenitor. There is no known globular cluster within 5 kpc compatible with being the progenitor of the stream, assuming that the stream traces its orbit. We examined overdensities along the stream, however no obvious counterpart bound stellar system is visible in the coadded images. We also find overdensities along the stream that appear to be symmetrically distributed - consistent with the epicyclic overdensity scenario for the formation of cold streams - as well as a misalignment between the Northern and Southern part of stream. Despite the close proximity we find no evidence that this stream and the halo cluster NGC 1261 have a common accretion origin linked to the recently found EriPhe overdensity (Li et al. 2016).

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No galaxy left behind: accurate measurements with the faintest objects in the Dark Energy Survey

Accurate statistical measurement with large imaging surveys has traditionally required throwing away a sizable fraction of the data. This is because most measurements have have relied on selecting nearly complete samples, where variations in the composition of the galaxy population with seeing, depth, or other survey characteristics are small. We introduce a new measurement method that aims to minimize this wastage, allowing precision measurement for any class of stars or galaxies detectable in an imaging survey. We have implemented our proposal in Balrog, a software package which embeds fake objects in real imaging in order to accurately characterize measurement biases. We demonstrate this technique with an angular clustering measurement using Dark Energy Survey (DES) data. We first show that recovery of our injected galaxies depends on a wide variety of survey characteristics in the same way as the real data. We then construct a flux-limited sample of the faintest galaxies in DES, chosen specifically for their sensitivity to depth and seeing variations. Using the synthetic galaxies as randoms in the standard Landy-Szalay correlation function estimator suppresses the effects of variable survey selection by at least two orders of magnitude. With this correction, our measured angular clustering is found to be in excellent agreement with that of a matched sample drawn from much deeper, higher-resolution space-based Cosmological Evolution Survey (COSMOS) imaging; over angular scales of $0.004^{\circ} < θ< 0.2^{\circ}$, we find a best-fit scaling amplitude between the DES and COSMOS measurements of $1.00 \pm 0.09$. We expect this methodology to be broadly useful for extending the statistical reach of measurements in a wide variety of coming imaging surveys.

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CMB lensing tomography with the DES Science Verification galaxies

We measure the cross-correlation between the galaxy density in the Dark Energy Survey (DES) Science Verification data and the lensing of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) as reconstructed with the Planck satellite and the South Pole Telescope (SPT). When using the DES main galaxy sample over the full redshift range $0.2 < z < 1.2$, a cross-correlation signal is detected at $6 σ$ and $4σ$ with SPT and Planck respectively. We then divide the DES galaxies into five photometric redshift bins, finding significant ($>$$2 σ$) detections in all bins. Comparing to the fiducial Planck cosmology, we find the redshift evolution of the signal matches expectations, although the amplitude is consistently lower than predicted across redshift bins. We test for possible systematics that could affect our result and find no evidence for significant contamination. Finally, we demonstrate how these measurements can be used to constrain the growth of structure across cosmic time. We find the data are fit by a model in which the amplitude of structure in the $z<1.2$ universe is $0.73 \pm 0.16$ times as large as predicted in the LCDM Planck cosmology, a $1.7σ$ deviation.

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Galaxy clustering, photometric redshifts and diagnosis of systematics in the DES Science Verification data

We study the clustering of galaxies detected at $i<22.5$ in the Science Verification observations of the Dark Energy Survey (DES). Two-point correlation functions are measured using $2.3\times 10^6$ galaxies over a contiguous 116 deg$^2$ region in five bins of photometric redshift width $Δz = 0.2$ in the range $0.2 < z < 1.2.$ The impact of photometric redshift errors are assessed by comparing results using a template-based photo-$z$ algorithm (BPZ) to a machine-learning algorithm (TPZ). A companion paper (Leistedt et al 2015) presents maps of several observational variables (e.g. seeing, sky brightness) which could modulate the galaxy density. Here we characterize and mitigate systematic errors on the measured clustering which arise from these observational variables, in addition to others such as Galactic dust and stellar contamination. After correcting for systematic effects we measure galaxy bias over a broad range of linear scales relative to mass clustering predicted from the Planck $Λ$CDM model, finding agreement with CFHTLS measurements with $χ^2$ of 4.0 (8.7) with 5 degrees of freedom for the TPZ (BPZ) redshifts. We test a "linear bias" model, in which the galaxy clustering is a fixed multiple of the predicted non-linear dark-matter clustering. The precision of the data allow us to determine that the linear bias model describes the observed galaxy clustering to $2.5\%$ accuracy down to scales at least $4$ to $10$ times smaller than those on which linear theory is expected to be sufficient.

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Cross-correlation of gravitational lensing from DES Science Verification data with SPT and Planck lensing

We measure the cross-correlation between weak lensing of galaxy images and of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The effects of gravitational lensing on different sources will be correlated if the lensing is caused by the same mass fluctuations. We use galaxy shape measurements from 139 deg$^{2}$ of the Dark Energy Survey (DES) Science Verification data and overlapping CMB lensing from the South Pole Telescope (SPT) and Planck. The DES source galaxies have a median redshift of $z_{\rm med} {\sim} 0.7$, while the CMB lensing kernel is broad and peaks at $z{\sim}2$. The resulting cross-correlation is maximally sensitive to mass fluctuations at $z{\sim}0.44$. Assuming the Planck 2015 best-fit cosmology, the amplitude of the DES$\times$SPT cross-power is found to be $A = 0.88 \pm 0.30$ and that from DES$\times$Planck to be $A = 0.86 \pm 0.39$, where $A=1$ corresponds to the theoretical prediction. These are consistent with the expected signal and correspond to significances of $2.9 σ$ and $2.2 σ$ respectively. We demonstrate that our results are robust to a number of important systematic effects including the shear measurement method, estimator choice, photometric redshift uncertainty and CMB lensing systematics. Significant intrinsic alignment of galaxy shapes would increase the cross-correlation signal inferred from the data; we calculate a value of $A = 1.08 \pm 0.36$ for DES$\times$SPT when we correct the observations with a simple IA model. With three measurements of this cross-correlation now existing in the literature, there is not yet reliable evidence for any deviation from the expected LCDM level of cross-correlation, given the size of the statistical uncertainties and the significant impact of systematic errors, particularly IAs. We provide forecasts for the expected signal-to-noise of the combination of the five-year DES survey and SPT-3G.

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Observation and Confirmation of Six Strong Lensing Systems in The Dark Energy Survey Science Verification Data

We report the observation and confirmation of the first group- and cluster-scale strong gravitational lensing systems found in Dark Energy Survey (DES) data. Through visual inspection of data from the Science Verification (SV) season, we identified 53 candidate systems. We then obtained spectroscopic follow-up of 21 candidates using the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) at the Gemini South telescope and the Inamori-Magellan Areal Camera and Spectrograph (IMACS) at the Magellan/Baade telescope. With this follow-up, we confirmed six candidates as gravitational lenses: Three of the systems are newly discovered, and the remaining three were previously known. Of the 21 observed candidates, the remaining 15 were either not detected in spectroscopic observations, were observed and did not exhibit continuum emission (or spectral features), or were ruled out as lensing systems. The confirmed sample consists of one group-scale and five galaxy cluster-scale lenses. The lensed sources range in redshift z ~ 0.80-3.2, and in i-band surface brightness i_{SB} ~ 23-25 mag/sq.-arcsec. (2" aperture). For each of the six systems, we estimate the Einstein radius and the enclosed mass, which have ranges ~ 5.0 - 8.6" and ~ 7.5 x 10^{12} - 6.4 x 10^{13} solar masses, respectively.

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