Wavefronts, Caustic Sheets, and Caustic Surfing in Gravitational Lensing

We study gravitational lensing by a generic extended mass distribution. For that, we consider the diffraction of electromagnetic (EM) waves by an extended, weakly aspherical, gravitating object. We account for the static gravitational field of such a lens by representing its exterior potential in the most generic form, expressed via an infinite set of symmetric trace free (STF) tensor multipole mass moments. This yields the most general form of the gravitational phase shift, ...

The mathematical theory of gravitational lensing has revealed many generic and global properties. Beginning with multiple imaging, we review Morse-theoretic image counting formulas and lower bound results, and complex-algebraic upper bounds in the case of single and multiple lens planes. We discuss recent advances in the mathematics of stochastic lensing, discussing a general formula for the global expected number of minimum lensed images as well as asymptotic formulas for th...

The basic equations and geometry of gravitational lensing are described, as well as the most important contexts in which it is observed in astronomy: strong lensing, weak lensing and microlensing.

We present a formal derivation of the key equations governing gravitational lensing in arbitrary space-times, starting from the basic properties of Jacobi fields and their expressions in terms of the exponential map. A careful analysis of Jacobi fields and Jacobi classes near the origin of a light beam determines the nature of the singular behavior of the optical deformation matrix. We also show that potential problems that could arise from this singularity do not invalidate ...

Wave-optics phenomena in gravitational lensing occur when the signal's wavelength is commensurate to the gravitational radius of the lens. Although potentially detectable in lensed gravitational waves, fast radio bursts and pulsars, accurate numerical predictions are challenging to compute. Here we present novel methods for wave-optics lensing that allow the treatment of general lenses. In addition to a general algorithm, specialized methods optimize symmetric lenses (arbitra...

The traditional perturbative method is applied to the case of gravitational lensing of planetary systems. A complete and detailed description of the structure of caustics for a system with an arbitrary number of planets can be obtained. I have also found precise analytical expressions for microlensing light curves perturbed by the presence of planets.

We study a class of gravitational lensing systems consisting of an inclined ring/belt, with and without an added point mass at the centre. We show that a common feature of such systems are so-called "pseudo-caustics", across which the magnification of a point source changes discontinuously and yet remains finite. Such a magnification change can be associated with either a change in image multiplicity or a sudden change in the size of a lensed image. The existence of pseudo-ca...

Gravitational lensing provides a unique and powerful probe of the mass distributions of distant galaxies. Four-image lens systems with fold and cusp configurations have two or three bright images near a critical point. Within the framework of singularity theory, we derive analytic relations that are satisfied for a light source that lies a small but finite distance from the astroid caustic of a four-image lens. Using a perturbative expansion of the image positions, we show th...

The purpose of these lecture notes is to describe the gravitational lens effects in different astrophysical contexts. These notes are voluntarily focused on the fundamental mechanisms and the basic concepts that are useful to describe these effects. The observational consequences are presented in more details in accompanying notes by Y. Mellier. The content of these notes is the following. In the first section describe of the basic mechanisms of gravitational lenses, techni...

The elegance and usefulness of a complex formulation of the basic lensing equations is demonstrated with a number of applications. Using standard tools of complex function theory, we present, for instance, a new proof of the fact that the number of images produced by a regular lens is always odd, provided that the source is not located on a caustic. Several differential and integral relations between the mean curvature and the (reduced) shear are also derived. These emerge al...