Advanced camera for surveys observations of a strongly lensed arc in a field elliptical galaxy

We report the discovery of a strongly lensed arc system around a field elliptical galaxy in Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) images of a parallel field observed during NICMOS observations of the HST Ultra Deep Field. The ACS parallel data comprise deep imaging in the F435W, F606W, F775W, and F850LP bandpasses. The main arc is at a radius of 1."6 from the galaxy center and subtends about 120degrees. Spectroscopic follow-up at Magellan Observatory yields a redshift z = 0.6174 for the lensing galaxy, and we photometrically estimate z(phot) = 2.4 +/- 0.3 for the arc. We also identify a likely counterarc at a radius of 0."6 that shows structure similar to that seen in the main arc. We model this system and find a good fit to an elliptical isothermal potential of velocity dispersion a sigma approximate to 300 km s(-1), the value expected from the fundamental plane, and some external shear. Several other galaxies in the field have colors similar to the lensing galaxy and likely make up a small group.