Related papers: Can gravitational microlensing by vacuum fluctuati…
Studies of the lensed quasar ${\rm Q}0957+561 {\rm A,B}$ have shown evidence for microlensing in the brightness history of the quasar images. It had been suggested that a frequency offset between the brightness fluctuations in each of the…
Quantum fluctuations in spacetime can, in some cases, lead to distortion in astronomical images of faraway objects. In particular, a stochastic model of quantum gravity predicts an accumulated fluctuation in the path length $\Delta L$ with…
When the vacuum fluctuation pressure is calculated directly from fundamental principles of quantum field theory, in the same manner as vacuum fluctuation energy density is commonly calculated, one finds it is not equal to the negative of…
It is shown that accurate photometric observations of a relatively high--magnification microlensing event ($A\gg 1$), occurring close to the line of sight of a gravitational wave (GW) source, represented by a binary star, can allow the…
Luminous tracers have been used extensively to map the large-scale matter distribution in the Universe. Similarly the dynamics of stars or galaxies can be used to estimate masses of galaxies and clusters of galaxies. However, assumptions…
We consider the nonunitary quantum dynamics of neutral massless scalar particles used to model photons around a massive gravitational lens. The gravitational interaction between the lensing mass and asymptotically free particles is…
This is a review of recent work on quantum fluctuations of the electric field and of stress tensor operators and their physical effects. The probability distribution for vacuum fluctuations of the electric field is Gaussian, but that for…
Gravitational lensing has established itself as a valuable tool in many astrophysical fields in the roughly 20 years of its existence as an observational science. In this brief review, first the basics of lensing are introduced. Then it is…
After exactly a century since the formulation of the general theory of relativity, the phenomenon of gravitational lensing is still an extremely powerful method for investigating in astrophysics and cosmology. Indeed, it is adopted to study…
Gravitational lenses can provide crucial information on the geometry of the Universe, on the cosmological scenario of formation of its structures as well as on the history of its components with look-back time. In this review, I focus on…
The four observables associated with gravitational lensing of distant quasars by intervening galaxies: image splittings, relative amplifications, time delays, and optical depths, provide separate measures of the strength of the…
Gravitational lensing is most often used as a tool to investigate the distribution of (dark) matter in the universe, but, if the mass distribution is known a priori, it becomes, at least in principle, a powerful probe of gravity itself.…
Gravitational lensing has become one of the most interesting tools to study the mass distribution in the Universe. Since gravitational light deflection is independent of the nature and state of the matter, it is ideally suited to…
The existence of irreducible field fluctuations in vacuum is an important prediction of quantum theory. These fluctuations have many observable consequences, like the Casimir effect which is now measured with good accuracy and agreement…
Frequency-dependent gravitational lens effects are found for trajectories of electromagnetic rays passing through a distribution of plasma near a massive object. Ray propagation through plasma adds extra terms to the equations of motion…
We examine the gravitational properties of Lamb shift energies. Using available experimental data we show that these energies have a standard gravitational behavior at the level of $\sim 10^{-5}$. We are motivated by the point of view that…
Weak gravitational lensing of distant galaxies can probe the total projected mass distribution of foreground gravitational structures on all scales and has been used successfully to map the projected mass distribution of rich intermediate…
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…
We found strong similarities between the gravitational lensing and the conventional optical lensing. The similarities imply a graded refractive index description of the light deflection in gravitational field. We got a general approach to…
Gravitational waves can act like gravitational lenses, affecting the observed positions, brightnesses, and redshifts of distant objects. Exact expressions for such effects are derived here in general relativity, allowing for…