Exploiting magnification bias in ultradeep submillimetre-wave surveys using ALMA

The surface density of populations of galaxies with steep/shallow source counts is increased/decreased by gravitational lensing magnification. These effects are usually called ‘magnification bias’ and ‘depletion’ respectively. However, if sources are demagnified by lensing, then the situation is reversed, and the detectable surface density of galaxies with a shallow source count, as expected at the faintest flux densities, is increased. In general, demagnified sources are difficult to detect and study: exquisite subarcsecond angular resolution and surface brightness sensitivity are required, and emission from the lensing object must not dominate the image. These unusual conditions are expected to be satisfied for observations of the dense swarm of demagnified images that could form very close to the line of sight through the centre of a rich cluster of galaxies using the forthcoming submillimetre-wave Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) interferometer. The demagnified images of most of the background galaxies lying within about 1 arcmin of a rich cluster of galaxies could be detected in a single 18-arcsec-diameter ALMA field centred on the cluster core, providing an effective increase in the ALMA field of view. This technique could allow a representative sample of faint, 10–100μJy submillimetre galaxies to be detected several times more rapidly than in a blank field.