Observations of radio-quiet quasars at 10-mas resolution by use of gravitational lensing

We present Very Large Array detections of radio emission in 4 four-image gravitational lens systems with quasar sources: HS 0810+2554, RX J0911+0511, HE 0435−1223 and SDSS J0924+0219, and extended Multi-Element Remote Linked Interferometer (e-MERLIN) observations of two of the systems. The first three are detected at a high level of significance, and SDSS J0924+0219 is detected. HS 0810+2554 is resolved, allowing us for the first time to achieve 10-mas resolution of the source frame in the structure of a radio-quiet quasar. The others are unresolved or marginally resolved. All four objects are among the faintest radio sources yet detected, with intrinsic flux densities in the range 1–5 μJy; such radio objects, if unlensed, will only be observable routinely with the Square Kilometre Array. The observations of HS 0810+2554, which is also detected with e-MERLIN, strongly suggest the presence of a mini active galactic nucleus, with a radio core and milliarcsecond scale jet. The flux densities of the lensed images in all but HE 0435−1223 are consistent with smooth galaxy lens models without the requirement for smaller scale substructure in the model, although some interesting anomalies are seen between optical and radio flux densities. These are probably due to microlensing effects in the optical.