GRAVITATIONAL LENSING AS FOLDS IN THE SKY

S. MOLLERACH Y E. ROULET

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MODERN PHYSICS A

WORLD SCIENTIFIC PUBL CO PTE LTD

Año: 2000 vol. 15 p. 4083 - 4097

0217-751X

We revisit the gravitational lensing phenomenon using a new visualization technique. It consists in projecting the observers sky into the source plane, what gives rise to a folded and stretched surface. This provides a clear graphical tool to visualize some interesting well-known effects, such as the development of multiple images of a source, the structure of the caustic curves, the parity of the images and their magnification as a function of the source position.