Theoretical gravitational lensing. Beyond the weak-field small-angle approximation
Abstract
An overview is given on those theoretical gravitational lensing results that can be formulated in a spacetime setting, without assuming that the gravitational fields are weak and that the bending angles are small. The first part is devoted to analytical methods considering spacetimes in which the equations for light rays (lightlike geodesics) is completely integrable. This includes spherically symmetric static spacetimes, the Kerr spacetime and plane gravitational waves. The second part is devoted to qualitative methods which give some information on lensing properties without actually solving the equation for lightlike geodesics. This includes Morse theory, methods from differential topology and bifurcation theory.
Cite
@article{arxiv.0708.0178,
title = {Theoretical gravitational lensing. Beyond the weak-field small-angle approximation},
author = {Volker Perlick},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0708.0178},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
20 pages, 9 figures; extended written version of rapporteur talk, given at the workshop on ``Theoretical Gravitational Lensing'' at the 11th Marcel Grossmann Meeting, Berlin, 2006