Galaxy scale lenses in the RCS2. I. First catalog of candidate strong lenses

We present the first galaxy scale lens catalog from the second Red-Sequence Cluster Survey. The catalog contains 60 lensing system candidates comprised of Luminous Red Galaxy (LRG) lenses at 0.2 ≲ z ≲ 0.5 surrounded by blue arcs or apparent multiple images of background sources. The catalog is a valuable complement to previous galaxy-galaxy lens catalogs as it samples an intermediate lens redshift range and is composed of bright sources and lenses that allow easy follow-up for detailed analysis. Mass and mass-to-light ratio estimates reveal that the lens galaxies are massive ( 5.5 × 10 ¹¹ [M h ^-1]) and rich in dark matter ( 14 [M/L _{, B} h]). Even though a slight increasing trend in the mass-to-light ratio is observed from z = 0.2 to z = 0.5, current redshift and light profile measurements do not allow stringent constraints on the mass-to-light ratio evolution of LRGs.