The SDSS-III BOSS quasar lens survey: discovery of thirteen gravitationally lensed quasars

We report the discovery of 13 confirmed two-image quasarlenses from a systematic search for gravitationally lensed quasarsin the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey ( BOSS). We adopted a methodology similar to that used in the SDSS Quasar LensSearch (SQLS). In addition to the confirmed lenses, we report 11 quasarpairs with small angular separations ($\lesssim$2") confirmed from our spectroscopy, which are either projected pairs, physical binaries, or possibly quasar lenssystems whose lensgalaxies have not yet been detected. The newly discovered quasar lenssystem, SDSS J1452+4224 at zs$\approx$4.8 is one of the highest redshift multiply imaged quasarsfound to date. Furthermore, we have over 50 good lenscandidates yet to be followed up. Owing to the heterogeneous selection of BOSS quasars, the lenssample presented here does not have a well-defined selection function.