Related papers: Gravitational Lensing
Gravitational microlensing finds planets through their gravitational influence on the light coming from a more distant background star. The presence of the planet is then inferred from the tell-tale brightness variations of the background…
The long-standing problem of whether the cosmological constant affects directly the deflection of light caused by a gravitational lens is reconsidered. We use a new approach based on the Hawking quasilocal mass of a sphere grazed by light…
We calculate the deflection of a light ray caused by the gravitational field of a cosmic string loop in the weak field limit and reduce the problem to a single quadrature over a time slice of the loop's world sheet. We then apply this…
In light of the surge in popularity of electromagnetic cloaking devices, we consider whether it is possible to use gravitational lensing to cloak a volume of spacetime. A metric for such a spacetime geometry is presented, and its geometric…
It is shown that the lens equation for a binary gravitational lens being a set of two coupled real fifth-order algebraic equations (equivalent to a single complex equation of the same order) can be reduced to a single real fifth-order…
The transparent Sun is modeled as a spherically symmetric and centrally condensed gravitational lens using recent Standard Solar Model (SSM) data. The Sun's minimum focal length is computed to a refined accuracy of 23.5 +/- 0.1 AU, just…
In this speculative, millenial essay, I try to anticipate what sort of novel gravitational optics investigations might be observed, after it becomes possible to map and monitor roughly a trillion sources (of which a billion may be usefully…
A summary is given of the current status and plans for gravitational-wave searches at all plausible wavelengths, from the size of the observable universe to a few kilometers. The anticipated scientific payoff from these searches is…
Strong gravitational lensing gives access to the total mass distribution of galaxies. It can unveil a great deal of information about the lenses dark matter content when combined with the study of the lenses light profile. However,…
We investigate gravitational lensing by a realistic model of disk galaxies. Most of the mass is contained in a large spherical isothermal dark matter halo, but the potential is modified significantly in the core by a…
Strong gravitational lensing and stellar dynamics provide two complementary and orthogonal constraints on the density profiles of galaxies. Based on spherically symmetric, scale-free, mass models, it is shown that the combination of both…
The measurement of the integrated optical polarization of weakly gravitationally lensed galaxies can provide considerable constraints on lens models. The method outlined depends on fact that the orientation of the direction of optical…
If it is hypothesised that there is no dark matter then some alternative gravitational theory must take the place of general relativity (GR) on the largest scales. Dynamical measurements can be used to investigate the nature of such a…
The observation of the bending of light by mass, now known as gravitational lensing, was key in establishing general relativity as one of the pillars of modern physics. In the past couple of decades, there has been increasing interest in…
With today's millimeter and submillimeter instruments observers use gravitational lensing mostly as a tool to boost the sensitivity when observing distant objects. This is evident through the dominance of gravitationally lensed objects…
Microlensings events are predicted for the light coming from cosmological sources. In addition to the microlensing due to gravitation lensing, microlensing produced also by refraction of light due to either ionized, or not, gas clouds can…
Compact objects with magnetic dipole are considered as gravitational lenses. The presence of strong magnetic field near the photon sphere can affect the trajectory of light. We compute the deflection angle near the photon sphere on the…
Strong gravitational lenses are unique cosmological probes. These produce multiple images of a single source. Whether a single galaxy, a group or a cluster, extracting cosmologically relevant information requires an accurate modeling of the…
The gravitational lensing by long, wiggly cosmic strings is shown to produce a large number of lensed images of a background source. In addition to pairs of images on either side of the string, a number of small images outline the string…
We discuss the gravitational lensing of gravitational wave signals from coalescing binaries. We delineate the regime where wave effects are significant from the regime where geometric limit can be used. Further, we focus on the effect of…