Gravitational Lensing from a Spacetime Perspective

Understand

The theory of gravitational lensing is reviewed from a spacetime perspective, without quasi-Newtonian approximations.

• More precisely, the review covers all aspects of gravitational lensing where light propagation is described in terms of lightlike geodesics of a metric of Lorentzian signature.
• It includes the basic equations and the relevant techniques for calculating the position, the shape, and the brightness of images in an arbitrary general-relativistic spacetime.
• It also includes general theorems on the classification of caustics, on criteria for multiple imaging, and on the possible number of images.