No Arabic abstract
We discuss the phenomenology of gravitational lensing in the purely metric $fleft(chiright)$ gravity, an $f(R)$ gravity where the action of the gravitational field depends on the source mass. We focus on the strong lensing regime in galaxy-galaxy lens systems and in clusters of galaxies. Using an approximate metric solution accurate to second order of the velocity field $v/c$, we show how, in the $fleft(chiright)=chi^{3/2}$ gravity, the same light deflection can be produced by point-like lenses with masses smaller than in General Relativity; this mass difference increases with increasing impact parameter and decreasing lens mass. However, for sufficiently massive point-like lenses and small impact parameters, $fleft(chiright)=chi^{3/2}$ and GR yield indistinguishable light deflection angles: this regime occurs both in observed galaxy-galaxy lens systems and in the central regions of galaxy clusters. In the former systems, the GR and $fleft(chiright)$ masses are compatible with the mass of standard stellar populations and little or no dark matter, whereas, on the scales of the core of galaxy clusters, the presence of substantial dark matter is required both in General Relativity, and in our approximate $fleft(chiright)=chi^{3/2}$ point-like lens solution. We thus conclude that our approximate metric solution of $fleft(chiright)=chi^{3/2}$ is unable to describe the observed phenomenology of the strong lensing regime without the aid of dark matter.
In this article we perform a second order perturbation analysis of the gravitational metric theory of gravity $ f(chi) = chi^{3/2} $ developed by Bernal et al. (2011). We show that the theory accounts in detail for two observational facts: (1) the phenomenology of flattened rotation curves associated to the Tully-Fisher relation observed in spiral galaxies, and (2) the details of observations of gravitational lensing in galaxies and groups of galaxies, without the need of any dark matter. We show how all dynamical observations on flat rotation curves and gravitational lensing can be synthesised in terms of the empirically required metric coefficients of any metric theory of gravity. We construct the corresponding metric components for the theory presented at second order in perturbation, which are shown to be perfectly compatible with the empirically derived ones. It is also shown that under the theory being presented, in order to obtain a complete full agreement with the observational results, a specific signature of Riemanns tensor has to be chosen. This signature corresponds to the one most widely used nowadays in relativity theory. Also, a computational program, the MEXICAS (Metric EXtended-gravity Incorporated through a Computer Algebraic System) code, developed for its usage in the Computer Algebraic System (CAS) Maxima for working out perturbations on a metric theory of gravity, is presented and made publicly available.
Discovery of strongly-lensed gravitational wave (GW) sources will unveil binary compact objects at higher redshifts and lower intrinsic luminosities than is possible without lensing. Such systems will yield unprecedented constraints on the mass distribution in galaxy clusters, measurements of the polarization of GWs, tests of General Relativity, and constraints on the Hubble parameter. Excited by these prospects, and intrigued by the presence of so-called heavy black holes in the early detections by LIGO-Virgo, we commenced a search for strongly-lensed GWs and possible electromagnetic counterparts in the latter stages of the second LIGO observing run (O2). Here, we summarise our calculation of the detection rate of strongly-lensed GWs, describe our review of BBH detections from O1, outline our observing strategy in O2, summarize our follow-up observations of GW170814, and discuss the future prospects of detection.
Although general relativity (GR) has been precisely tested at the solar system scale, precise tests at a galactic or cosmological scale are still relatively insufficient. Here, in order to test GR at the galactic scale, we use the newly compiled galaxy-scale strong gravitational lensing (SGL) sample to constrain the parameter $gamma_{PPN}$ in the parametrized post-Newtonian (PPN) formalism. We employ the Pantheon sample of type Ia supernovae observation to calibrate the distances in the SGL systems using the Gaussian Process method, which avoids the logical problem caused by assuming a cosmological model within GR to determine the distances in the SGL sample. Furthermore, we consider three typical lens models in this work to investigate the influences of the lens mass distributions on the fitting results. We find that the choice of the lens models has a significant impact on the constraints on the PPN parameter $gamma_{PPN}$. We use the Bayesian information criterion as an evaluation tool to make a comparison for the fitting results of the three lens models, and we find that the most reliable lens model gives the result of $gamma_{PPN}=1.065^{+0.064}_{-0.074}$, which is in good agreement with the prediction of $gamma_{PPN}=1$ by GR. As far as we know, our 6.4% constraint result is the best result so far among the recent works using the SGL method.
With increasing sensitivities of the current ground-based gravitational-wave (GW) detectors, the prospects of detecting a strongly lensed GW signal are going to be high in the coming years. When such a signal passes through an intervening lensing galaxy or galaxy cluster, the embedded stellar-mass microlenses lead to interference patterns in the signal that may leave observable signatures. In this work, we present an extensive study of these wave effects in the LIGO/Virgo frequency band ($10$-$10^4$ Hz) due to the presence of the microlens population in galaxy-scale lenses for the first time. We consider a wide range of strong lensing (macro) magnifications and the corresponding surface microlens densities found in lensing galaxies and use them to generate realisations of the amplification factor. The methodologies for simulating amplification curves for both types of images (minima and saddle points) are also discussed. We then study how microlensing is broadly affected by the parameters like macro-magnifications, stellar densities, the initial mass function (IMF), types of images, and microlens distribution around the source. In general, with increasing macro-magnification values, the effects of microlensing become increasingly significant regardless of other parameters. Mismatch analysis between the lensed and the unlensed GW waveforms from chirping binaries suggests that, while inferring the source parameters, microlensing can not be neglected for macro-magnification $gtrsim 15$. Furthermore, for extremely high macro-magnifications $gtrsim 100$, the mismatch can even exceed $5%$, which can result in both a missed detection and, consequently, a missed lensed signal.
The number of strong lens systems is expected to increase significantly in ongoing and upcoming surveys. With an increase in the total number of such systems we expect to discover many configurations that correspond to unstable caustics. In such cases, the instability can be used to our advantage for constraining the lens model. We have implemented algorithms for detection of different types of singularities in gravitational lensing. We test our approach on a variety of lens models and then go on to apply it to the inferred mass distribution for Abell 697 as an example application. We propose to represent lenses using A3-lines and singular points (A4 and D4) in the image plane. We propose this as a compact representation of complex lens systems that can capture all the details in a single snapshot.