English

Gravitational Microlensing by the Ellis Wormhole

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2015-05-20 v2 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

A method to calculate light curves of the gravitational microlensing of the Ellis wormhole is derived in the weak-field limit. In this limit, lensing by the wormhole produces one image outside the Einstein ring and one other image inside. The weak-field hypothesis is a good approximation in Galactic lensing if the throat radius is less than 1011km10^{11} km. The light curves calculated have gutters of approximately 4% immediately outside the Einstein ring crossing times. The magnification of the Ellis wormhole lensing is generally less than that of Schwarzschild lensing. The optical depths and event rates are calculated for the Galactic bulge and Large Magellanic Cloud fields according to bound and unbound hypotheses. If the wormholes have throat radii between 100 and 107km10^7 km, are bound to the galaxy, and have a number density that is approximately that of ordinary stars, detection can be achieved by reanalyzing past data. If the wormholes are unbound, detection using past data is impossible.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1009.6084,
  title  = {Gravitational Microlensing by the Ellis Wormhole},
  author = {F. Abe},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1009.6084},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

27 pages, 4 figures, ApJ accepted

R2 v1 2026-06-21T16:21:28.801Z