Comment on Aberration in gravitational lensing

Phys. Rev. D submitted (05 Feb 2010, 25 Mar 2010)

Olaf Wucknitz [1]

  1. Argelander-Institut für Astronomie, Auf dem Hügel 71, 53121 Bonn, Germany

Abstract

In the article Aberration in gravitational lensing by Sereno, relativistic aberration is used to describe the gravitomagnetic effects of moving gravitational lenses. It is found that Einstein radii of radially moving point-mass lenses scale with 1-v/c$, which would contradict direct conclusions from previous authors" work. This comment argues that these results are actually in agreement if it is taken into account that the geometry is defined differently. The mentioned scaling is merely a result of relativistic aberration itself but not specific for lensed sources. In addition we elaborate on the concept of using modified angular size distances to quantify the effects of radial motion of source, lens or observer. This leads to a significantly simplified description of these effects.

In contrast to Sereno, we find that transverse motion does not distort Einstein rings into ellipses but only changes their size.

Key words: PACS 95.30.Sf, 04.20.Cv, 04.25.Nx, 98.62.Sb

This is the continuation of a subject I wrote a first paper on some years ago. It is a comment on a paper by Mauro Sereno. A revision has been submitted as reaction to a reply from Sereno.



Phys. Rev. D submitted (05 Feb 2010, 25 Mar 2010) (link to online journal)



download preprint
PDF file (149.2 kB, last change 5 Feb 2010)
Original version. 4 pages, one figure, all b/w.

download preprint2
PDF file (108.7 kB, last change 25 Mar 2010)
Revised version, some clarifications to avoid misunderstandings. No changes to conclusions. 5 pages, one figure, all b/w.



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