Limits on Cosmological Models from Radio‐selected Gravitational Lenses

We are conducting a redshift survey of 177 flat-spectrum radio sources in 3 samples covering the 5GHz flux ranges 50-100, 100-200 and 200-250 mJy. So far, we have measured 124 redshifts with completenesses of 80%, 68% and 58% for the bright, intermediate, and faint flux ranges. Using the newly determined redshift distribution we can derive cosmological limits from the statistics of the 6 gravitational lenses in the JVAS sample of 2500 flat-spectrum radio sources brighter than 200 mJy at 5GHz. For flat cosmological models with a cosmological constant, the limit using only radio data is Omega₀ > 0. 27 at 2-sigma (0. 47 0. 38 at 2-sigma (0. 64 0. 26 at 2-sigma in flat cosmologies. The increasing fraction of radio galaxies as compared to quasars at fainter radio fluxes (rising from ~10% at 1 Jy to ~50% at 0. 1 Jy) explains why lensed optical emission is common for radio lenses and partly explains the red color of radio-selected lenses.