Gravitational lensing by Elliptical Galaxies, and the Schwarz Function
Abstract
We discuss gravitational lensing by elliptical galaxies with some particular mass distributions. Using simple techniques from the theory of quadrature domains and the Schwarz function (cf. \cite{Sh}) we show that when the mass density is constant on confocal ellipses, the total number of lensed images of a point source cannot exceed 5 (4 bright images and 1 dim image). Also, using the Dive--Nikliborc converse of the celebrated Newton's theorem concerning the potentials of ellipsoids, we show that ``Einstein rings'' must always be either circles (in the absence of a tidal shear), or ellipses.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.0708.2684,
title = {Gravitational lensing by Elliptical Galaxies, and the Schwarz Function},
author = {C. D. Fassnacht and C. R. Keeton and D. Khavinson},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0708.2684},
year = {2007}
}
Comments
16 pages, 7 figures based on a pleanry talk at the international conference on analysis and mathematical physics "New Trends in Complex and Harmonic Analysis", May 7 - 12, 2007, Voss, Norway