My 7th Semester Reading Project for Astronomy and Astrophysics.
| Home | Introduction | Methods | Results | Conclusions |
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I am Abha Vishwakarma, a 4th year Int. M.Sc. student majoring in physics at NISER, India. This website is made for my reading project for our Astronomy and Astrophysics course, instructed by Dr. Luke Chamandy, and I’ve tried to keep it accessible to 3rd/4th year undergraduates. I hope you can learn something from here. Feel free to contact me at [email protected] for any queries!
The Einstein Cross Q2234+030. The Four objects that make up a cross in this image are actually different images of the same quasar, formed by the bending light around a massive body between the line of sight to the quasar. Credits - NASA, ESA, and STScI.
Even though solving the equations of General Relativity is a daunting task, it has successfully explained and predicted many interesting phenomena, like the bending of light around massive objects, known as Gravitational Lensing(GL). GL can result in one or multiple magnified images of a body lying behind the cluster. This enables us to peer further away in space and, hence, back in time. When the cluster is dense in some regions, the images produced have a more significant angular separation. This is called Strong GL(SGL).and it leads to Einstein Crosses. The essential features of SGL are understood through perturbation theory. A comparison between the theoretical and observational results is required at an undergraduate level. I conducted a literature survey to illustrate the theoretical and observational techniques used to identify and study GLs. I then present recent observational and theoretical results and draw comparisons between them. I also provide some helpful open source resources to learn and simulate GLs. I conclude with a discussion on future work in this field.
[Introduction](<https://abhavishwakarma.notion.site/Introduction-52bc46ff21a04d2594add9c664b8be06>)
History of GL, and a brief overview of the project
[Methods](<https://abhavishwakarma.notion.site/Methods-f4091dc6242147faa2b9f1dc05d60ec2>)
Theoretical derivations and Observational Methods
[Results](<https://abhavishwakarma.notion.site/Results-9d7f7e4acbf645aa802509f8c8cd24eb>)
Observational and Theoretical Findings
[Conclusions](<https://abhavishwakarma.notion.site/Conclusions-3e042b87a1ca4a92a057c5178881c562>)
A brief summary and discussion on future work