Gravitational Lensing

Understanding Curvature of Space and Time and its

effects Gravitational Lensing

Zara Mazhar

Content
1. Introduction – What is gravity? 4
2. Space-Time Curvature 5

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 3. Gravitational Lensing 7
- 3.1 Introduction 7
- 3.2 Gravitational Lensing and Spacetime Curvature 8
4. Types of Lensing 12
- 4.1 Strong Lensing 12
- 4.2 Weak Lensing 13
- 4.3 Micro Lensing 14
5. So what is a black hole?
15
- 5.1 The Mathematic bit 15
- 5.2 Spacetime and Bending of light 16
6. Dark Matter 17
- 6.1 What is dark matter? 17
o 6.1a. MACHOs 17
o 6.1b. WIMPs 17
- 6.2 Lensing MACHOs 18
7. Dark Energy 19
8. Experiment 20
9. Note 1 22
10. Appendix 1-3 22
11. Appendix 4-7 23
12. Appendix 7-8 24
13. Bibliography 25

“There is a theory which states that if anyone discovers exactly what

the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be

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 replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is
another theory which states that this has already happened.” (Adams,
1995)

Abstract
In 1900, Lord Kelvin is quoted to have said that “there is
nothing more to be discovered in physics now, all that
remains is more and more precise measurements”. Only
five years later Einstein introduced relativity that left
scientists awestruck as they realized all they had
discovered was either wrong or just a small fraction of the
reality.
In general relativity, Einstein introduced the idea of
spacetime; he realized that space and time are very
much linked together. He described gravity in terms of
spacetime and realized gravity is due to the fact that
masses act on the fabric of spacetime causing a
curvature. He then realized that the curvature will have
an effect on the path of photons (particles that light is
made of) and will cause them to bend around massive
stellar objects in order to keep the principle of least
action. 70 years later dark matter and traces of dark
energy were discovered. Dark matter is today mapped
using Einstein’s theory that describes the phenomenon of
photons bending around massive objects.

1. Introduction – What is gravity?

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Most of our life we have known gravity as an “attractive force between
objects” and we often understand it as a force that is responsible for
keeping us and all objects on earth’s surface. Without gravity we’d fly off
in all directions.
The existence of gravity as a universal force has not been known to the
humans for long. Hundreds of years ago, the only explanations of Earth,
sun and moon’s existence were gods. In 322 BC, Greek philosopher
Aristotle proposed the idea that the universe was made up of a group of
concentric spheres with Earth at the very centre. His ideas were widely
believed for many centuries to come until Polish Priest Nicolaus
Copernicus (1473 AD – 1543 AD) declared that Earth was not the centre
after all but simply orbited around the Sun along with the rest of the
planets. During this period of Renaissance, another brilliant Italian
Astronomer was born, named Galileo Galilei. He was one of the first
leading supporters of Copernicus. As the legend goes, Galileo climbed
the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa where he simultaneously dropped a
large and a small weight. Both weights hit the ground at the same time,
thus proving that all objects, barring air resistance, fall at the same
speed.

Newton and Gravity

How we understand the force of gravity today has a lot to do with

Newton’s laws of motion (1) that were published in 1687 by Sir Isaac
Newton, an English scientist, who was the first person to actually realize
that there is a force holding all objects down to the Earth’s surface. He
also realized it is the same force that holds the planets and stars and all
other objects in space in their place; only 50 years before he was born it
was believed an invisible shield kept them together in their orbits. He
named this force gravity. Newton proposed that the planets are held in
their orbits by the same force which maintains the moon in its orbits
about the Earth and which the Earth exerts on a body when it causes it
to fall back to the ground.
Newton realized that if Earth exerts a force on a body then the same
body must exert a force back on Earth of the same magnitude. He also
knew that the force exerted on a body by the Earth is proportional to the
mass of the body. He figured the force exerted by the body on Earth
must be proportional to the mass of the Earth; as these forces are equal
they behave similarly a change in one is accompanied by an equal
change in the other.
All his ideas and laws combined together are summarised in Newton’s
law of universal gravitation:
Every particle in the Universe attracts every other with a force which is
proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to
the square of their separation. (2)
Thus,

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 m1 m 2
F=G ——————— (3)
r2

where,
F = the gravitational force of attraction between two
bodies whose masses are m1 m2, and whose centres
are a distance ‘r’ apart
G = a constant of proportionality known as the
universal gravitational constant (= 6.67 x 10-11 Nm2 kg-
2
)
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————
1. See Appendix 1
2. Isaac Newton, The Principia, A new translation by I.B. Cohen and A. Whitman,
University of California press, Berkeley 1999.
3. Roger Muncaster, A-level Physics (Third-Edition).

2. Space-Time Curvature

“Spacetime are the arenas in which all physical events take place - In
any given spacetime, an event is a unique position at a unique time.
Because events are spacetime points, an example of an event in
classical relativistic physics is (x, y, z, t), the location of an elementary
particle at a particular time.”(1)

In 1917 Einstein introduced general relativity that changed the way

scientists understood the universe forever. He brought in the concept of
Spacetime that combines space and time in a single continuum. He
suggested that we live in a four dimensional universe, the three
dimensions of space that we are well aware of – up and down,
backwards and forwards, left and right – and a fourth dimension being
time, something that we cannot visualize very easily for it has not been
detected but its existence is known. (2)
Some of Einstein’s greatest works include his publications on General
Theory of Relativity and the Special Theory of Relativity. At this point it
is important to understand Einstein’s work on the spacetime continuum.
In his Special Theory of Relativity, Einstein states two postulates:
1. The speed of light – approximately 3x108 – is the same for
all observers, whether or not they’re moving. It stays constant.
2. Anyone moving at a constant speed should observe the
same physical laws.
Now putting his ideas together, Einstein realized that space and time
are very much related so an object in motion actually experiences
time at a slower rate than one at rest, this is called time dilation. In
mathematical form time dilation is described as follows: (3)

t′ = t √ (1 – v2)
2
C

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Where,
t′ = Time of object in motion
t = the actual time
v = velocity at which the object is travelling
c = the speed of light

It may seem absurd, but that’s because we travel at an incredibly slow

velocity, only a fraction (e.g. 125 m/s) of the speed of light, 3x108 m/s.
So if we were to assume that the object can travel as fast as light, 1 –
(3x108 / 3x108), the time of object in motion will then be t′ = 0, which
means time will stop. There are several theories about what might
happen if we could travel faster than speed of light, the strongest of
which being the one that suggests we might be able to travel into the
future. Unfortunately, Einstein then goes to tell in his Special Theory of
Relativity that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.

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————
1. WikiPedia.
2. See Note 1
3. Beautiful Equations, December 2010. [Video Documentary] BBC 4: Presented by
Matt Collings.
4. See Appendix 2
5. See Bibliography (Online). Reference – (1).
6. See Appendix 3.

Einstein’s general relativity was entirely based on the idea of a curved

spacetime. He described space and time as warped or curved. Its very
hard to think of a fourth dimension however the following extract
describes and helps understand what curved spacetime is like, in a very
similar way to how Carl Sagan(4) did in his television series:

“Imagine walking down a street in your neighbourhood and coming upon an ordinary-
looking house at the end of the street. You observe the house from the outside,
walking all the way around it, and in doing so get a pretty good idea of its size, and
thus how big you would expect it to be on the inside. You might picture a living room, a
kitchen, two bedrooms and so on. Now imagine walking through the front door and
finding that the house is much bigger on the inside than you expected. There is a
cavernous living room, a restaurant-sized kitchen, fourteen spacious bedrooms. In
short, what you thought would be an ordinary house actually contains a large
mansion’s worth of rooms! Such an Alice in Wonderland experience is an example of
“warped” (or “curved”) space. Surprisingly, this is not just the stuff of fiction: using his
imagination and the power of mathematics, Albert Einstein discovered that our
universe is actually like this, and used the phenomenon of warped space (and warped
time) to explain what gravity is.” (5)

Einstein has now given a way to describe gravity, which the scientist
finally knew a lot more about than a magical force keeping everything
together. Now if, considering spacetime in two-dimension, we were to
pretend that spacetime fabric is a stretched out rubber sheet, a mass
placed on the sheet would disrupt the fabric, causing it to bend inwards

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and warp. The heavier the mass would be, the more fabric is likely to
warp. This is how Einstein described gravity. He believed that gravity
was warping of spacetime around massive objects, for example galaxies,
stars, black holes etc. And so, larger the mass of the object, the more
spacetime fabric will bend inwards and warp. The following diagrams
show the fabric and the affect of masses on it.

Fig. 1 Spacetime fabric in two-dimensional

analogy, Fig. 2 Matter changes
the geometry of spacetime,
the lines represent the coordinate system imposed on the curvature is
interpreted as gravity. Above is a
spacetime, it would be rectilinear (6) in flat spacetime. (6) low mass star.

Fig. 4 High mass Neutron Star causing more

spacetime warp, hence stronger gravity.

3. Gravitational lensing - Introduction

According to Newton’s theory of gravity, since photons [1] have no mass,

light would always travel in a straight line even if there were massive
objects obstructing the path between the source and the observer. It
was Einstein who realized that the curvature in a spacetime fabric
caused by mass should also deflect or bend
light if it moves through spacetime. Hence the
theory states that gravity acts by producing
curvature in space-time, and the path of all
objects, whether or not they have mass, are
also curved if they pass near a massive body.
This was confirmed in May 1919 by Arthur
Eddington who led expeditions sponsored by

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the Royal Astronomical Society and the Royal Society to take
photographs of a region of the sky centred on the Sun during the total
solar eclipse and compared the positions of the photographed stars with
those of the same stars photographed from the same locations in July
1919 when the Sun was far from that region of the sky.

Fig. 5. From the report of Sir Arthur

Eddington.

Following the confirmation, it was soon then realized by Eddington and

Chwolson that this deflection of light by massive objects might lead to
the effect that an observer sees two or more distinct images of one and
the same light source. Also, Chwolson proposed the possibility that, in
case of axial symmetry, the light source might appear as a ring around
the deflecting mass.
The first ever promising candidate for gravitational lensing was only
found in the 1979, results were published by Walsh, Carlswell and
Weyman on the double quasar 0957+561 the suggested that we see
two images of one and the same quasar, produced by the gravitational
field of an intervening galaxy. Since then, numerous gravitational lens
candidates have been found, including multiple quasars, radio rings and
luminous arcs. Gravitational lenses, in addition to being interesting in
themselves, can reveal the intrinsic
properties of galaxies, active
galaxies, and quasars, and provide
information on the universe and its
content, including dark matter.

Fig. 6. Double Quasar 0957+561

3.2 Gravitational lensing and Spacetime curvature

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Planck and Einstein identified that light is made up of a stream of energy
packets called photons, these packets or quanta behave like both, a wave and
particle.

Principle of Least Action

Behaviour of photons has puzzled thinkers for centuries. It was first observed
by the Hero of Alexandria that light always takes the path of the shortest
distance between two points which
leads us to question how it knows which
direction will give the shortest path. An
amendment was made to this
observation by Fermat in 1662 which
stated that the path was of least time,
as when light refracts it takes the
fastest not the shortest path. Refraction,
the change of direction of light as it
enters a different medium, also
illustrates Fermat’s law of least time.
When light refracts it bends to take the
path of least time. In terms of waves,
the wave part that hits the boundary
first slows down first to bend the wave front direction, so refraction is just light
travelling in a “straight” line adjusted for speed. In 1752 the following principal
was developed by Maupertuis:
“The quantity of action necessary to cause any change in Nature
always is the smallest possible”.
The Principle of Least Action, that light always takes the best path, was
developed mathematically by Euler, Leibnitz, Hamilton and others. How
light finds the path of least action remains a mystery today e.g. light
bouncing off the mirror (in diagram above) could take any of the dotted
paths shown but by principle of optics always takes the solid line
shortest path. How does it do this?
‘That a photon, with no known internal mechanism, always finds the
fastest route to any target, for any media combination, for any path
complexity, for any number of alternate paths and inclusive and
relativistic effects, is nothing short of miraculous.’[]

So now we understand photons travel along the shortest path between two
points.

The gravitational field influences and even determines the

metrical laws of the space-time continuum. If the laws of
configuration of ideal rigid bodies are to be expressed
geometrically, then in the presence of a gravitational field the
geometry is not Euclidean” (Einstein, Meaning 61).

Whereas the shortest distance between two points on a plane is a

straight line; on the surface of a sphere or similarly along the
gravitationally induced curvature of spacetime, the shortest distance
between two points, the source and the observer, describes an arc-or,
in formal geometrical terms, a geodesic. The photon itself remains

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massless and does not directly interact with gravity, however the
warping caused due to gravity (curvature of object in the spacetime
continuum) disrupts the fabric thereby changing the path of light. The
following diagram shows the phenomena;

Spacetime fabric

Object in
the path
Photons travelling the
shortest path around
the object
The intervening
Fig. 7. objects, galaxies or other
massive bodies act as lenses. This
means that like an ordinary lens, the light from an object on the other
side will be bent towards your eye. Since light always moves at a
constant speed, lensing changes the direction of the velocity of the light,
but not the magnitude.
The lensing effect can magnify and distort the image of the background
source. The maximum bending occurs closest to, and minimum bending
furthest from the centre of gravitational lens (see the figures on next
page). If the source, the massive lensing object, and the observer lie in a
straight line, the original light source will appear as a ring around the
massive lensing object. In case of misalignment the observer will see an
arc segment instead. Where the lensing mass is complex such as
galaxies and clusters and do not cause a spherical distortion of
spacetime, the source resembles partial arcs scattered around the lens.
The observer then sees multiple distorted images of the same source;
depending upon the relative positions of the source, lens and observer,
and the shape of the gravitational well of the lensing object, the number
and shapes of these distortions may vary.

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The light photons leave the emitting source and bends around the
obstructing object, i.e. a massive body like planet, to take the fastest
route to the observer. The mass in the centre acts like a lens, deflecting
the light from the source towards the observer. This phenomenon is
shown in Fig 8a;
Source: Where the light comes from, can be a quasar,
the cosmic microwave background, a galaxy, etc.

Fig. 8a. Bending of light

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 Observer: Who sees a different
amount of light
Deflector: Which deflects the light by an amount related than otherwise
because the lens has bent
To its quantity of mass/energy, can be anything with Spacetime and this the
travel paths of the light
Mass/energy

Image: The multiple lensed

images observer sees, a
distance away from the
actual source
Fig. 8b. (left)The
images

formed due to the lensing

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 Fig. 8c. The deflected angle
Where,
Dds = The distance from the lens to the image
Ds = The Distance between the observer and the image
b = The minimum distance between the lens and the line of
image
(Impact Parameter)
α = Deflecting angle (observer and image)

The correct formula to derive the angle α for a light passing at a

distance r from an object with mass M, according to Einstein’s General
theory of relativity is;

Note: The Newtonian value was different because in this equation the
additional factor of two is due to the spatial curvature which is missed if
photons are just treated as particles.

Now from the diagram 8c, we can substitute the known measurements
to get the basic gravitational lensing equation;

Where,
G = Gravitational constant
M = Mass of the lensing object
C = Speed of light (Constant - 3.00x 108)

Note: From the formula we can see α is directly proportional to M, which is one
reason why gravitational lensing is extremely useful. It helps find the mass of
massive galaxies and other objects.

4 Types of lensing
Gravitational lensing can be further divided into three types; strong,
weak and micro lensing. Each of these play an important role in modern
physics as they all act as exceptionally significant tools in finding what is
not known to us.

4.1 Strong Lensing

When the lensing objects are very massive, like a cluster of galaxies,
strong lensing occurs. In this case when the observer look towards the
light source he typically sees the lensing object and one or more images
of the light source around the object. A commonly used example of
strong lensing is gravitational lens G2237+0305;
This is also known as the Einstein Cross, in the centre of this lens is a
galaxy approximately four hundred million light

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years away and the four images around it are of a quasar which is
approximately eight billion light years away.[1] Since real lensing objects
aren’t point masses and don’t have perfectly even mass distributions
the images of the light source that the observer sees are usually
stretched and magnified. The images around the lensing object are also
not typically symmetric, as in the case of the Einstein Cross. If the
observer, lensing object and the light sources are all in line, then the
image of the light source will be stretched into a ring around the lensing
objects, called an Einstein ring. [2] The angular radius of this ring is given
by the equation; Fig.9.

Where; rQ = distance to the light source from the observer, rL = is the

distance to the lensing object from the observer, RS is the Schwarzschild
radius.
Another example of a strong lensing is the cluster of Abell 2218. This
cluster of galaxies is so massive that it bends the light of the galaxies
behind it into the arcs seen in Fig. 7. Abell 2218 is a good example of
the common type of strong lensing where objects and sources are often
not aligned perfectly, so in actual the light source is not stretched into a
complete ring, but arcs.

Fig. 10.

Strong lensing, distortions are very easily visible, due to the fact that
these occur at large scales and are millions and billions of light years
away. It may produce image separations of several arcminutes i.e. the
galaxy will produce multiple images separated by only a few arcseconds.
[3]
This type of gravitational lensing can be also be observed by X-Rays
and radio waves. [4]
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

————
Reference list for Types of lensing on page 12
4.2 Weak Lensing
In recent years weak lensing has proven to be a powerful, novel tool in
observational cosmology, because it provides a versatile probe of the
dark matter distribution. However the distortions of background sources
in this case are much smaller and can only be detected by analyzing
large number of sources over a period of times to find coherent

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distortions of only a few percent. [2] By measuring the shapes and
orientations of large numbers of distant galaxies, their orientations can
be averaged to study the lensing field in any region. This can be used to
reconstruct the mass distribution in the area, a very useful tool. In order
to analyse this type of lensing, a very large number of galaxies must be
studied. The results of these studies are important for several measures
e.g. cosmological parameter estimation and perhaps to provide an
important future constraint on dark energy. [5] It also provides a way to
measure the masses of astronomical objects without requiring
assumptions about their composition or dynamical state. [6]

Fig.11

In the above lensing, the lens galaxies (yellow) deflect the light from the
distant quasar, producing four images. If the brightness varies with time,
the expansion rate of the universe can be measured. Positions of the
four images also give information about the mass of the lens.
Applications
• The most important application in cosmology is weak lensing of
galaxies.
• Using weak lensing, we can measure shapes and orientations of
many distant galaxies, also the shear of lensing field.
• We can then reconstruct the background mass distribution of the
area.
• “Since the speed of light is finite, an observer on the Earth will see
distant galaxies not as they look today, but rather as they
appeared at some earlier time. By restricting the lens sample of a
galaxy-galaxy lensing study to lie at only one particular redshift, it
is possible to understand the mass properties of the field galaxies
that existed during this earlier time. Comparing the results of
several such redshift-restricted lensing studies (with each study
encompassing a different redshift), one can begin to observe
changes in the mass features of galaxies over a period of

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 several epochs, leading towards a better understanding of the
evolution of mass on the smallest cosmological scales” [7]

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————
Reference list for Types of lensing on page 12

4.3 Microlensing
If the lensing object is relatively small, such as a star, only a small
amount of light gets bent the lensing object and the lensing object
simply appears brighter than it normally would. It is caused by the same
physical effects as strong and weak lensing however the observational
techniques are very different because unlike the other two, even if the
apparent brightening of the source is detected, the lens mass is too low
for the displacement of light to be observed easily with a high resolution
telescope e.g. the Hubble Space Telescope. [8] In such case, the lens
passes by the source in a reasonable amount of time, seconds to years
instead of millions of years. As the alignment changes, the source’s
apparent brightness changes, and this can be monitored to detect and
study the event. For Microlensing to occur the source and lens must be
closely aligned and both must be within the galaxy, chances of this
happening may be one in a million e.g. it took 57 years to confirm the
effect prediction by actual observation.

Fig. 12a. (above)

Fig. 12b. (right)

When the star and its orbiting planets are in line to the observer, gravity
causes a temporary increase in the brightness of the star. This method
can be used to detect objects that do not emit light i.e. black holes, dark
matter (Silk, 1999). It can also provide information on comparatively
small astronomical objects like MACHO’s[9] (Massive Compact Halo
objects) – black holes, white dwarfs and brown dwarfs – and extrasolar
planets, 12 extrasolar planets have been detected between 2004 and
2011. [10] It can also help find earth-sized planets around sun-like stars.

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———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

————
1. See Appendix 4
2. See Appendix 5
3. Diana Streng, PHY495. Lecture: Gravitational Lensing. University of North Carolina
Wilmington.
4. Arlie O. Petters, Harold Levine, Joachim Wambsganss. Singularity theory and
gravitational lensing; Chapter 3 Basic Physical Concepts.
5. Melia,Fulvio (2007). The Galactic Supermassive Black Hole. Princeton University
Press.
6. Mattias Bartelmann and Peter Schneider, August 2000. Weak Gravitational Lensing.
Elsevier Preprint.
7. Parker Laura C., Hoekstra Henk, Michael J Hudson, Ludovic van Waerbeke, Yannick
Mellier, November 2007. Astrophysical Journal: The masses and shapes of dark matter
halos from galaxy-galaxy lensing in the CFHT legacy Survey.
8. See Appendix 6
9. See Dark Matter
10. Gaudi et al, 2008. Discovery of a Jupiter/Saturn Analog with Gravitational
Microlensing.

5. So what’s a Black Hole?

A celestial body with such an intense pull that nothing, not light, not
electromagnetic radiations, perhaps not even time – nothing can escape
its hole; hence the name black hole. It possesses an infinite density and
is a one-way pathway because things can go in but cannot escape out.
Its core is termed as singularity and the outer boundary is the event
horizon, the end point beyond which anything and everything is sucked
into the cosmic whirlpool of infinite density.
When an interstellar gas cloud contracts and forms a sphere which in its
centre has a temperature and pressure high enough to start hydrogen
fusion [1], a star is born. The star remains in this phase for most of its
active life and only in the last ten percent of its active life its conditions
change dramatically. [2] The size of the star depends on what becomes of
them; either they could form a black hole or white dwarfs. However,
when the massive stars of stellar mass [3] run out of fuel, their core
implodes into a point of infinite density and their outer layers are blown
away in a powerful supernova explosion and black holes are formed,
they continue to grow by absorbing mass from its surroundings,
absorbing other stars and often other black holes to form supermassive
black holes. The gravity in these black holes is so colossal that an object
or person falling into it will experience spaghettification, a term using to
describe the point lying within the event horizon at which tidal forces
destroy an object or kills a person, keeping in mind that black holes are
so large that their masses can well be more than that of 10 suns put
together. These are called “black holes” for the obvious reason; they
observe all the light that hits the horizon, reflecting absolutely nothing,
not even time which stops.

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In the 18th century objects with very powerful gravitational fields such
that even light can not escape were considered by John Michell [4];
though the first prediction, in context to general relativity, of black holes
in modern physics was proposed by Karl Schwarzschild in 1916. It was in
the 1960s when black holes became recognized in theoretical works
after being introduced and researched on by famous scientists of the
20th and 21st century like Stephen Hawking. Over the past few decades,
scientists have developed ways to study these black holes using binary
systems to observe their interactions with their companion stars.
5.1 The Mathematic bit
According to the Newtonian gravity, everything that goes up falls down
again. It only applies for velocity less than ve= 11km/s which is the
Earth’s escape speed. [6]
The formula as listed below shows that,
m1 m 2
F = G ———————
r2
i.e. Force decreases with distance, so the decrease in velocity is slower.
If the velocity is large enough, we can escape the earth’s surface e.g.
spacecrafts sent to other planets. Now, let’s look at the escape velocity
equation;
GM
Ve = 2 ————— [7]
R
Where G = 6.7 x 10 (gravitational constant), M = Mass of object, R =
-11

Radius in metres.
In this case if the escape velocity ve greater than speed of light, no light
can come of it and it’ll appear black. This normally happens if there is a
lot of mass in a very small area, as true for black holes. [8]

5.2 Spacetime and Bending of light

Light rays that pass close to the black hole get caught and cannot
escape. Therefore, the region around the black hole is a dark disk. Light
rays that do pass a little further away don’t get caught but do get bent
by the back hole’s gravity. This makes it appear distorted, and also
produces multiple images. You can see duplicate images of the same
star and other stellar objects on opposite sides of the black hole,
because light rays passing the black hole on either side get bent
towards you. In fact, there are infinitely many images of each star,
corresponding to light rays that circle the black hole several times
before coming towards you. This can easily be visualized using the two-
dimensional analogue of spacetime warp discussed in the previous

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chapters, in this case the massive mass is that of the black hole causing
the ray of light to bend around its warp.

Fig. 13. Curved Spacetime around Fig. 14. Simulated view towards a Fig. 15. The
four blue dots, known
a Black hole, inside the horizon or black hole. The background stars are as the
Einstein Cross are images
Gravitational radius space is so shown with realistic colors. Close to of the same
distant quasar. Its light
strongly curved that nothing can the black hole, they all blend into a is bent
by gravity of a foreground
escape. white haze. Galaxy.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
————
1. See appendix 7.
2. Peter Joshua Martin Bokulich, April 2003. Horizons of Description: Black Holes
and Complementarity. Ph. D. University of Notre Dame.
3. See Appendix 8.
4. Gijsbert Akijo Nelemans, March 2001. White dwarfs, black holes and neutron
stars in close. Ph. D. Univeriteit van Amsterdam.
5. Michell, J. (1784). Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 74 (0): 35–57.
6. See Appendix 9.
7. Juan Maldacena, March 2002. Public Lecture: Black Holes and Structure of
Space-Time. Institute for Advanced Study.
8. Ariel Goobar. Determining the fraction of compact objects in the Universe using
Supernova observations. Stockholm University.
6. Dark Matter

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Lord Kelvin is quoted to have said “There is nothing new to be
discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise
measurement.”[1] Little did he know that only a century later, scientists
will discover that 95% of the universe has been unaccounted for. In
1970s, an astronomer called Vera Rubinwas measuring the velocities of
stars noticed something stranger: the stars at the galaxies’ edges
moved faster than had been predicted. To reconcile her observations
with the law of gravity, scientists proposed that there is matter that we
can not see and named it dark matter. [2]
We can estimate the baryonic matter of the universe by studying Big
Bang nucleosynthesis. This is done by connecting the observed He/H
ratio of the Universe today to the amount of baryonic matter present
during the early hit phase when most of the helium was produced. We
can estimate the necessary baryon density shortly after the Big Bang,
and consequently, the total number of baryons today. The researches
and results then showed that you need 0.05 M total baryonic matter to
account for the known ratio of light isotopes.
So that means only 1/20 of the total mass of the Universe is baryonic
matter. Where is the rest of the matter? Dark matter! Extensive studies
at CERN show that Dark Matter make 23% of the matter present in the
universe. It is called dark, because it does not interact with ordinary
matter and does not reflect light thus it’s not visible to us. The largest
part of dark matter, which does not interact with electromagnetic
radiation, is not just dark but also utterly transparent!

6.1 What is dark matter?

Nobody knows what it is. It surely is astonishing and rather worrying for
scientists to acknowledge the fact that we still do not know and
understand 95% of our universe. It has surely eluded finest minds in
science for quite a while now, even though the hunt continues, nobody
knows that mysterious substance that accounts for three-quarters of the
matter in the universe. The two main categories that scientists consider
to be candidates for dark matter are;

6.1a. MACHOs – Massive Astrophysical Compact Halo Objects

MACHOs are the big, strong dark matter objects ranging in size from
small stars to super massive black holes. [3] They are made of ‘ordinary’
matter, the baryonic matter and are too far away to be seen. MACHOs
are non-luminous object that make up the halo around galaxies, types of
Machos:

• Brown Drawfs: Brown dwarfs are made out of hydrogen. Stars like
sum form when a mass of hydrogen collapses under its own
gravity and the intense pressure initiates a nuclear reaction,
emitting light and energy. Brown dwarfs are different from normal
stars because of their relatively low mass, and do not have enough
gravity to ignite when they form.

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 • Black Holes

6.1b. WIMPs – Weakly interacting Massive Particles

WIMPs are the little weak subatomic dark matter candidates, which are
thought to be made of non-baryonic matter. They are normally too small
to be seen. Small than atoms, weakly interactive massive particles are
thought to have mass, but usually interact with baryonic matter
gravitationally, they pass right through ordinary matter. [4] The problem
then lies with WIMPs because they rarely interact with ordinary matter,
which makes them difficult to detect.

6.2 Lensing Machos

This is where gravitational lensing works at its best. It’s used as a

technique to search for dark matter halo objects. It occurs when a brown
dwarf or a black hole passes between a light source such a star or a
galaxy, and a observer on the Earth. The object focuses the light rays,
causing the light source to brighten. [5]

Fig. 16. Gravitational lensing around MACHO [5]

The gravitational lensing technique is not only used to detect the

MACHOs but it also helps calculate mass of the MACHO by determining
the distances and the duration of the lens effect. [5]

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———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

————
1. Paul Davies and Julian Brown, 1988. Superstring: A theory of everything.
2. BBC. Dark Matter. [online] [Accessed 17 March 2011] Available at:
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/universe/questions_and_ideas/dark_matte
r/>
3. J. Michael West, Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1992. Clusters of Galaxies. The
Astronomy and Astrophysics Encyclopedia.
4. James Trefil, June 1993. Dark Matter. Smithsonian.
5. Emilion Falco and Natheniel Cohen, July 1981. Astronomy: Gravity Lenses - A
Focus on the Cosmic Twins.

7. Dark Energy
So what is the rest of the 72% unaccounted matter? To be precise, its
dark energy. During my research, I came across the term dark energy
quite a lot and its repetition in several studies high lightened its
importance. So what is dark energy? It sounds a lot like dark matter, but
it is not related at all.

“The term dark basically means we don’t understand it. Scientist

term everything they don’t know or don’t understand as dark. It has
been awfully inconvenient, causing confusing links to dark matter and
some scientists do feel they had much rather rename it.” [1]
It all started when Einstein realized that perhaps empty space is not
nothing! The first property of space that Einstein discovered is that it is
possible for more space to come into existence. One version of
Einstein’s gravity theory that contains a cosmological constant makes a
second prediction: empty space can possess its own energy. Because
the energy is a property of space itself, it would not be thinned as space
expands and as more space comes into existence, more of this energy
would appear. As a result, this form of energy would cause the Universe
to expand faster and faster.

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 Fig. 17. The diagram shows changes in the
Rate of expansion since the Universe’s birth
14 billion years ago. The more shallow the
Curve, the faster the rate of expansion.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

————
1. Dr Meghan Gray, 2011. Introduction to Gravitational Lensing and weak lensing.
[Zara Mazhar] University of Nottingham, 11 February 2011.
The Experiment
I, personally, learn more from practical experiences than reading. And
being very enthusiastic about my project, I decided to do a little
experiment to test how gravitational lensing works. When I came up
with the idea initially, I realized it’s quite complicated and might not
work at all. I gave it a try nonetheless to try and form an Einstein ring
using cheap home equipment. The basic idea of the experiment was as
follows;

For the light source, I used a normal torch.

To form the lens (the deflector) I used a
wine bottle’s base. A pinhole was formed
on a cardboard; when the torch was lit, a
very faded-formation of an Einstein ring
appeared on the screen (the wall in my
experiment). Following images show the
results;

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I then repeated this experiment, looking for a stronger candidate of an
Einstein ring in my school lab. This time I used better lab equipment.
Instead of a torch I used a ray box – I later realized that was a bad
decision as we need all the light being emitted onto the lens. And I used
optic lenses instead of wine bottle bases. I did achieve some forms of
lensed images but not much close to an Einstein ring.

Now the success story! As I worked through my research report, I

realized the lens in the centre that simulates a point mass such as a
black hole needs to look more like logarithmic lens. I searched all over
the internet and local stores for such a lens but couldn’t find any. Hence
I decided to make my own lens! I created a lens with an inward curved
base using liquid resin. To form it, I used a pencil to warp a rubber sheet
then filled it with resin which dried off to form the lens I needed. I even
created a wooden stand to hold the lens later!
Equipment used;
1. Torchlight as a light source
2. Resin lens as a deflector
3. Optic lens as eye lens
4. Screen as retina

The result was an Einstein ring!

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Note 1
A dimension does not need to be detected to exist. If we had no memory
of the interval we label as "time," our existence in space-time would still
occur.

Appendix 1
Newton’s three laws of motion (1)
are as follows:

Law I: Every body persists in its state of being at rest or of moving

uniformly straight forward, except insofar as it is compelled to change
its state by force impressed. (2) (3)
Law II: The rate of change of momentum of a body is directly
proportional to the external force acting on the body and takes place in
the direction of the force. (3)

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In mathematical terms the second law is written as F=ma (1) where ‘m’ is
the mass of body and ‘a’ is the acceleration caused by the application of
the force. (3)
Law III: If a body exerts a force on a body B, then B exerts an equal and
oppositely directed force on A.

Appendix 2
Carl Sagan was an American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist,
author and science populariser and science communicator in the space
and natural sciences. During his lifetime, he published more than 600
scientific papers and popular articles and was author, co-author, or
editor of more than 20 books. In his works, he advocated sceptical
inquiry and scientific method. He pioneered exobiology and promoted
the SETI.
Sagan became world-famous for his popular science books and for the
award-winning 1980 television serious Cosmos: A Personal Voyage,
which he narrated and co-wrote. A book to accompany the program was
also published. Sagan also wrote the novel Contact, the basis for the
1997 film on the same name.

Sources:
1. Carl Sagan. [online] [Accessed 17th March 2011] Available at
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#cite_note-Starchild-1>
2. StarChild: Dr. Carl Sagan. NASA.

Appendix 3
A regular grid is a tessellation of n-dimensional Euclidean space by
congruent parallelotopes (e.g. bricks). Grids of this type appear on graph
paper and may be used in finite element analysis as well as finite
volume methods and finite difference methods. Since the derivatives of
field variables can be conveniently expressed as finite differences,
structured grids mainly appear in finite
difference methods. Unstructured grids offer
more flexibility than structured grids and
hence are very useful in finite element
and finite volume methods.
Source: Wikipedia

Fig. 18. Example of rectilinear Grid.

Appendix 4

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A light-year is a unit of length, equal to just under 10
trillion kilometres (1016 metres, 10 petametres or about 6 trillion miles).
As defined by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a light-year is
the distance that light travels in a vacuum in one Julian year.

Source: International Astronomical Union, 2008. The IAU and

astronomical units.

Appendix 5
A gravitational lens effect occurs when the image of a remote
background object, such as a quasar, is distorted into a ring by a
foreground galaxy. A perfect ring will only result if the source, the
lensing object, and the observer are exactly lined up, and, in addition,
the mass of the lensing object is evenly distributed.

Fig. 19. An Einstein Ring. Image credit: Hubble

Space
Telescope/J. L. King, University of Manchester.

Appendix 6
Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is a space-based telescope that was
launched in 1990 by the space shuttle. From its position 353 miles (569
km) above Earth’s surface, the HST has expanded our understanding of
star birth, star death, and galaxy evolution, and has helped move black
holes from theory to fact. In its first 15 years, the telescope recorded
over 700,000 images.

Source: What is the Hubble Space Telescope. [online] [Accessed: 17

March 2011] Available at
<http://hubblesite.org/reference_desk/faq/answer.php?
id=76&cat=topten>

Appendix 7
About 99% of the interstellar medium is in a gaseous state, with
hydrogen making up 90% of the atoms. About half of this gas is tied up
in interstellar gas clouds which have different properties depending on
the temperature of the gas.
In the coldest and densest regions of the interstellar medium we find
clouds whose cores contain molecular gases, primarily molecular
hydrogen (H2) gas. Molecular gases can only be found under these
conditions since very little energy is required to break the molecules
apart. A small increase in the gas temperature of the cloud will cause

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the molecules to dissociate, as will starlight if it is able to penetrate
deep enough into the cloud to be absorbed by the molecules. These
molecular clouds have temperatures of only about 10 Kelvin and have a
high concentration of dust grains to protect the molecular gases at their
centre from incoming photons.
If the gas cloud is not quite cold or dense enough for hydrogen
molecules to survive, we end up with a cloud of neutral hydrogen atoms.
These clouds tend to have temperatures of around 100 Kelvin and are
commonly named HI clouds, since astronomers often refer to neutral
hydrogen as HI (pronounced H-one).
Occasionally gas clouds are found close to a very hot star which heats
the gas to about 10,000 Kelvin. The radiation from the star also ionizes
the hydrogen which later emits light at a wavelength of 656.3 nm as it
recaptures an electron and returns to its lowest energy state. These gas
clouds result in one of the most common forms of emission nebulae and
are usually referred to as HII regions, again following the naming
convention astronomers use for ionized hydrogen (HII, pronounced H-
two).

Source:
Cosmos – The SAO Encyclopaedia of Astronomy, Swinburne University of
Technology. Interstellar Gas Clouds. [online] Available at:
<http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/I/Interstellar+Gas+Cloud>
[Accessed 14th 2011]

Appendix 8
In the basic Hydrogen fusion cycle, four Hydrogen nuclei (protons) come
together to make a Helium nucleus. This is the simple version of the
story. There are actually electrons, neutrinos and photons involved that
make the fusion of Hydrogen into Helium possible.
The important thing to remember is that this fusion cycle releases
energy in the core of the star. It is this fusion cycle that generates
energy in our Sun. We know of this energy when we feel hot on summer
days!

Source: University of Oregon

Appendix 9

The Earth's escape speed, for example, is 11 km/s. (If you want to figure
it you, the mass of the earth is 6 x 1024 kg, and the radius is 6.4 x 106
meters.)
(source: Zeilik, Michael., and John Gaustad. Astronomy: The Cosmic
Perspective. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 1990.)

Appendix 9.1 Testing equation.

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 So what's the escape velocity from a 3-solar mass neutron star?
Since I'm already throwing numbers around, we might as well do
some math. We'll solve the escape velocity equation using 3-solar
masses (5.967 x 1030 kg) and a radius of 15 km (neutron stars
come between 10 and 20 km in radius).

Vesc = √ (2GM)/ R
Vesc = √ 2(6.7 x 10-11)(5.967 x 1030)/ 15000
Vesc = 2.309 x 108 m/s

Bibliography
*The following bibliography contains list of other sources that were used (besides the
one mentioned in the report). Data might not have necessarily been used them from
these sources, but ideas were taken and some were used for cross-referencing. Some
were read but weren’t found to be reliable sources.

Online

1. <http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/Outreach/Explore_Our_Universe
/What_is_Warped_Spacetime?/> [Accessed : 23 January 2011]
2. <http://web.mit.edu/bskow/www/research/onceuponaspacetime.p
df>
[Accessed: 11th March 2011]

Books, Novels and Series Publications:

1. Albert Einstein, PhD (1921). Translation by Robert W. Lawson DSc

(University of Sheffield) The theory of Relativity: The Special and
General Relativity. 5th Edition.
2. Marcus Kriele (2001). Space Time, 1st edition. Corr. 2nd printing
edition.
[Accessed location: University of Nottingham]
3. Steven Weinberg. Gravitation and Cosmology Principles and
applications of General Theory of Relativity. [Accessed location:
University of Nottingham]

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4. Clusters, Lensing, Lensing and the future of the universe.
Astronomical Society of the Pacific Conference Series Volume 88. [
Accessed location: University of Nottingham]
5. JOSHI. Gravitational Collapse and Spacetime Singularities.
[Accessed: University of Aston, Birmingham]
6. Microlensing 2000 A new era of Microlensing Astrophysics.
Astronomical Society of the Pacific Conference series. Volume 239.
[Accessed location: University of Nottingham]
7. The Swiss Years Correspondence (1902-1914). Albert Einstein 5.
8. Gravitational Lensing: Recent Progress and Future Goals.
Astronomical Society of the Pacific Conference Series. Volume
237.
9. Shapiro (1983). Black Holes White Dwarfs and Neutron Stars.
Wiley-VCH Publications, 1st edition.
10. Joseph Schwartz and Michael McGuinness (1992). Einstein for
Beginners.
11. Stuart Clark (1997). Towards the Edge of the Universe – A review
of Modern Cosmology.

Thesis work, dissertations and lectures:

1. David Faige; 2000. Space Time Continuum – A thesis.

2. Brian Whitworth (August 2010). The Light of Existence; Massey
University Auckland, New Zealand.
3. A. Abdo. Gravitational lensing; Michigan State University.
4. Thomas Knierim. Spacetime. Lecture Notes.

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