Related papers: New observable for gravitational lensing effects d…
We offer a concise and direct way to derive the bending angle of light (i.e. as generally called, gravitational lensing), while light grazes a star, through the approach suggested earlier by the first author, which is fundamentally based on…
The peculiar motion of massive objects across the line of sight imprints a dipolar temperature anisotropy pattern on the cosmic microwave background known as the moving lens effect. This effect provides a unique probe of the transverse…
Main-sequence stars earlier than spectral type ~F6 or so are expected to rotate rapidly due to their radiative exteriors. This rapid rotation leads to an oblate stellar figure. It also induces the photosphere to be hotter (by up to several…
We use a series of ray-tracing experiments to determine the magnification distribution of high-redshift sources by gravitational lensing. We determine empirically the relation between magnification and redshift, for various cosmological…
We introduce the notion of defocusing gravitational lens considering a MACHO located behind a light source with respect to an observer. The consequence of defocusing effect is a temporal variability of star luminosity which produces a gap…
During microlensing events with a small impact parameter, the amplification of the source flux is sensitive to the surface brightness distribution of the source star. Such events provide a means for studying the surface structure of target…
Strong gravitational lensing occurs when photons pass through the vicinity of a black hole. We investigate this phenomenon in the context of a gravitational-wave event, specifically when a black hole is settling into its final state. The…
As GRBs trace the high-z Universe, there is a non-negligible probability of a lensing effect being imprinted on the lightcurves of the bursts. We propose to search for lensed candidates with a cross-correlation method, by looking at bursts…
The study of extra-solar planetary systems has emerged as a new discipline of observational astronomy in the past few years with the discovery of a number of extra-solar planets. The properties of most of these extra-solar planets were not…
We study a class of gravitational lensing systems consisting of an inclined ring/belt, with and without an added point mass at the centre. We show that a common feature of such systems are so-called "pseudo-caustics", across which the…
The study of light lensed by cosmic matter has yielded much information about astrophysical questions. Observations are explained using geometrical optics following a ray-based description of light. After deflection the lensed light…
Recent developments in gravitational lensing astronomy have paved the way to genuine mappings of the gravitational potential at cosmological scales. We stress that comparing these data with traditional large scale structure surveys will…
The orbital parameters of extra-solar planets have a significant impact on the probability that the planet will transit the host star. This was recently demonstrated by the transit detection of HD 17156b whose favourable eccentricity and…
We qualitatively study the effects of gravitational microlensing on our view of unresolved extragalactic star formation regions. Using a general gravitational microlensing configuration, we perform a number of simulations that reveal that…
Deflection of light by gravity was predicted by General Relativity and observationaly confirmed in 1919. In the following decades various aspects of the gravitational lens effect were explored theoretically, among them the possibility of…
The gravitational microlensing as a unique astrophysical tool can be used for studying the atmosphere of stars thousands of parsec far from us. This capability results from the bending of light rays in the gravitational field of a lens…
We study strong gravitational lensing by spiral galaxies, modeling them as infinitely thin uniform disks embedded in singular isothermal spheres. We derive general properties of the critical curves and caustics analytically. The…
The light curve of an exoplanetary transit can be used to estimate the planetary radius and other parameters of interest. Because accurate parameter estimation is a non-analytic and computationally intensive problem, it is often useful to…
In the present work, we theoretically investigate light deflection in the weak and strong field regimes for two regular spacetimes with corrections from loop quantum gravity. We treat analytically the expansions for both limits and use them…
Supernova neutrino bursts have been observed from extragalactic distances. This note addresses the question of how gravitational lensing could distort the information in the burst. We apply the gravitational lens hypothesis to try to…