The Discovery of a Gravitationally Lensed Quasar at z = 6.51
  Strong gravitational lensing provides a powerful probe of the physical
properties of quasars and their host galaxies. A high fraction of the most
luminous high-redshift quasars was predicted to be lensed due to magnification
bias. However, no multiple imaged quasar was found at z>5 in previous surveys.
We report the discovery of J043947.08+163415.7, a strongly lensed quasar at
z=6.51, the first such object detected at the epoch of reionization, and the
brightest quasar yet known at z>5. High-resolution HST imaging reveals a
multiple imaged system with a maximum image separation theta ~ 0.2", best
explained by a model of three quasar images lensed by a low luminosity galaxy
at z~0.7, with a magnification factor of ~50. The existence of this source
suggests that a significant population of strongly lensed, high redshift
quasars could have been missed by previous surveys, as standard color selection
techniques would fail when the quasar color is contaminated by the lensing
galaxy.
