DEEP IMAGING OF THE DOUBLE QUASAR QSO-0957+561 - NEW CONSTRAINTS ON H-0

In this Letter we present new results from extremely deep, high-resolution images of the field around the double quasar QSO 0957 + 561. A possible gravitational are system near the double quasar has recently been reported, which, if real, would set strong constraints on determinations of the Hubble constant from the time delay in the double quasar. We find that both the morphology and the colors of the claimed are systems suggest that they are chance alignments of three and two different objects, and not gravitationally lensed arcs. Hence, the constraints on H-0 determinations from the arcs are not valid. Also, a small group of galaxies at z = 0.5 near the line of sight, which was required to have a very large mass in the physically interesting are models, is most likely insignificant. From our deep images we are able to use weak lensing of faint background galaxies in the held to map the gravitational potential in the main cluster. This sets new constraints on determinations of H-0. We find that the Hubble constant is constrained to be less than 70 km s(-1) Mpc(-1), if the time delay between the two images of the QSO is equal to or larger than 1.1 yr.