Related papers: Superluminal Caustics of Close, Rapidly-Rotating B…
Gravitational lensing deflects light. A single lens deflector can only shear images, but cannot induce rotations. Multiple lens planes can induce rotations. Such rotations can be observed in quadruply imaged sources, and can be used to…
A null ray approaching a distant astronomical source appears to slow down, while a massive particle speeds up in accordance with Newtonian gravitation. The integration of these apparently incompatible aspects of motion in general relativity…
The orientation of a massive binary undergoes a random walk due to gravitational encounters with field stars. The rotational diffusion coefficient for a circular-orbit binary is derived via scattering experiments. The binary is shown to…
Special relativity theory is generalized to two or more ``maximal'' signalling speeds. This framework is discussed in three contexts: (i) as a scenario for superluminal signalling and motion, (ii) as the possibility of two or more ``light''…
Theoretically, bound binaries of massive black holes are expected as the natural outcome of mergers of massive galaxies. From the observational side, however, massive black hole binaries remain elusive. Velocity shifts between narrow and…
We discuss strong gravitational lensing by multiple objects along any line of sight. The probability for strong gravitational lensing by more than one lens is small, but a number of strong lens systems in which more than one separate lens…
The sweep speed of an electron beam across the face of an oscilloscope can exceed the velocity of light, although of course the velocity of the electrons does not. Associated with this possibility there should be a kind of Cherenkov…
Gaudi & Gould (1997) showed that close companions of remote binary systems can be efficiently detected by using gravitational microlensing via the deviations in the lensing light curves induced by the existence of the lens companions. In…
Massive compact objects soften binaries. This process has been used for decades to constrain the population of such objects, particularly as a component of dark matter (DM). The effects of light compact objects, such as those in the…
Imagine a swarm of free particles near a point P outside a gravitating mass M and a free reference particle at P that is on a radial escape trajectory away from M. Relative to this reference particle and in a Fermi normal coordinate system…
Non-tachyonic superluminal sectors of matter (superbradyons), with critical speeds in vacuum much larger than the speed of light, can quite naturally exist and play an important role in both cosmic-ray physics (anomalous high-energy events)…
Planetary companions to the source stars of a caustic-crossing binary microlensing events can be detected via the deviation from the parent light curves created when the caustic magnifies the star light reflecting off the atmosphere or…
We study gravitational lensing of the cosmic neutrino background. This signal is undetectable for the foreseeable future, but there is a rich trove of information available. At least some of the neutrinos from the early universe will be…
In this paper I discuss whether superluminal particles exist in the general relativistic theory of gravity. It seems that the answer to this question is negative. In truth the result may only represent a difficulty to {\bf special} but not…
In extreme scattering events, the brightness of a compact radio source drops significantly, as light is refracted out of the line of sight by foreground plasma lenses. Despite recent efforts, the nature of these lenses has remained a…
We consider compensated spherical lens models and the caustic surfaces they create in the past light cone. Examination of cusp and crossover angles associated with particular source and lens redshifts gives explicit lensing models that…
It is known that a relative translational motion between the deflector and the observer affects gravitational lensing. In this paper, a lens equation is obtained to describe such effects on actual lensing observables. Results can be easily…
We study the influence of general lens and source velocities on the gravitational deflection of light by single and two-point-mass microlenses with general axis orientation. We demonstrate that in all cases the lens equation preserves its…
It has been a persistent question at least for a decade where the gravitational lens caustics are in the radial direction: whether in front of the lensing mass, behind the lensing mass, or on the plane normal to the line of sight that…
Recently, Heyrovsk\'y & Sasselov (1999) investigated the sensitivity of {\it single-lens} gravitational microlensing event light curves to small spots and found that during source transit events spots can cause deviations in amplification…