We discuss, without assuming asymptotic flatness, a gravitational lens for an observer and source that are within a finite distance from a lens object. The proposed lens equation is consistent with the deflection angle of light that is defined for nonasymptotic observer and source by Takizawa et al. [Phys. Rev. D 101, 104032 (2020)] based on the Gauss-Bonnet theorem with using the optical metric. This lens equation, though it is shown to be equivalent to the Bozza lens equation[Phys. Rev. D 78, 103005 (2008)], is linear in the deflection angle. Therefore, the proposed equation is more convenient for the purpose of doing an iterative analysis. As an explicit example of an asymptotically nonflat spacetime, we consider a static and spherically symmetric solution in Weyl conformal gravity, especially a case that $γ$ parameter in the Weyl gravity model is of the order of the inverse of the present Hubble radius. For this case, we examine iterative solutions for the finite-distance lens equation up to the third order. The effect of the Weyl gravity on the lensed image position begins at the third order and it is linear in the impact parameter of light. The deviation of the lensed image position from the general relativistic one is $\sim 10^{-2}$ microarcsecond for the lens and source with a separation angle of $\sim 1$ arcminute, where we consider a cluster of galaxies with $10^{14} M_{\odot}$ at $\sim 1$ Gpc for instance. The deviation becomes $\sim 10^{-1}$ microarcseconds, even if the separation angle is $\sim 10$ arcminutes. Therefore, effects of the Weyl gravity model are negligible in current and near-future observations of gravitational lensing. On the other hand, the general relativistic corrections at the third order $\sim 0.1$ milliarcseconds can be relevant with VLBI observations.
New axisymmetric stationary solutions of the vacuum Einstein equations in five-dimensional asymptotically flat spacetimes are obtained by using solitonic solution-generating techniques. The new solutions are shown to be equivalent to the four-dimensional multi-solitonic solutions derived from particular class of four-dimensional Weyl solutions and to include different black rings from those obtained by Emparan and Reall.
A definition of asymptotic flatness at spatial infinity in $d$ dimensions ($d\geq 4$) is given using the conformal completion approach. Then we discuss asymptotic symmetry and conserved quantities. As in four dimensions, in $d$ dimensions we should impose a condition at spatial infinity that the "magnetic" part of the $d$-dimensional Weyl tensor vanishes at faster rate than the "electric" part does, in order to realize the Poincare symmetry as asymptotic symmetry and construct the conserved angular momentum. However, we found that an additional condition should be imposed in $d>4$ dimensions.
The higher dimensional Weyl curvature induces on the brane a new source of gravity. This Weyl fluid of geometrical origin (reducing in the spherically symmetric, static configuration to a dark radiation and dark pressure) modifies space-time geometry around galaxies and has been shown to explain the flatness of galactic rotation curves. Independent observations for discerning between the Weyl fluid and other dark matter models are necessary. Gravitational lensing could provide such a test. Therefore we study null geodesics and weak gravitational lensing in the dark radiation dominated region o…
By using Stationary-to-Randers correspondence (SRC), a characterization of light and time-convexity of the boundary of a region of a standard stationary (n+1)-spacetime is obtained, in terms of the convexity of the boundary of a domain in a Finsler n or (n+1)-space of Randers type. The latter convexity is analyzed in depth and, as a consequence, the causal simplicity and the existence of causal geodesics confined in the region and connecting a point to a stationary line are characterized. Applications to asymptotically flat spacetimes include the light-convexity of stationary hypersurfaces whi…
We estimate the changes in solar system tests of general relativity when "dark energy" arises from a Weyl scaling invariant action, using the modified Schwarzschild-like spherically symmetric solution obtained in this case by Adler and Ramazano\vglu. We show that the standard results of general relativity are modified by amounts that are far below current experimental errors. However, because the metric is not conformally flat when the central mass $M$ vanishes, there is a contribution to light deflection proportional to the cosmological constant $Λ$, with opposite sign to the one proportional…
We have investigated the strong gravitational lensing for the photons coupled to Weyl tensor in a Schwarzschild black hole spacetime. We find that in the four-dimensional black hole spacetime the equation of motion of the photons depends not only on the coupling between photon and Weyl tensor, but also on the polarization direction of the photons. It is quite different from that in the case of the usual photon without coupling to Weyl tensor in which the equation of motion is independent of the polarization of the photon. Moreover, we find that the coupling and the polarization direction modif…
Shape Dynamics is a theory of gravity that waives refoliation invariance in favor of spatial Weyl invariance. It is a canonical theory, constructed from a Hamiltonian, 3+1 perspective. One of the main deficits of Shape Dynamics is that its Hamiltonian is only implicitly constructed as a functional of the phase space variables. In this paper, I write down the equations of motion for Shape Dynamics to show that over a curve in phase space representing a Minkowski spacetime, Shape Dynamics possesses Poincaré symmetry for appropriate boundary conditions. The proper treatment of such boundary condi…
In this paper, we mainly aim at highlighting the importance of (hyper-)elliptic integrals in the study of gravitational effects caused by strongly gravitating systems. For this, we study the application of elliptic integrals in calculating the light deflection as it passes a plasmic medium, surrounding a charged Weyl black hole. To proceed with this, we consider two specific algebraic ansatzes for the plasmic refractive index, and we characterize the photon sphere for each of the cases. This will be used further to calculate the angular diameter of the corresponding black hole shadow. We show …
Conformal Weyl Gravity (CWG) predicts galactic rotation curves without invoking dark matter. This makes CWG an interesting candidate theory as an alternative to GR. This removal of the necessity of dark matter arises because the exact exterior solution in CWG for a static, spherically symmetric source provides a linear potential $γr$, which can explain the observed galactic rotation curves with a value for $γ$ given by $\sim + 10^{-26} \mathrm{m}^{-1}$. Previous work has also shown that CWG can explain lensing observations, but with $γ\sim - 10^{-26} \mathrm{m}^{-1}$ in order to ensure converg…
We calculate the deflection angle of light from a distant source by a galaxy cluster in Weyl's conformal gravity. The general method of calculation is first applied to calculate the deflection angle in Schwarzschild-de Sitter (Kottler) spacetime. The deflection angle calculated in Kottler spacetime includes the contribution of the cosmological constant, which quantitatively agrees with one work and disagrees with many works in the literature. We then calculate the deflection angle in Mannheim-Kazanas spacetime in two conformally related coordinate systems and find that the result includes cont…
We present firstly equation of motion for the photon coupled to Weyl tensor in a Kerr black hole spacetime and then study further the corresponding strong gravitational lensing. We find that black hole rotation makes propagation of the coupled photons more complicated, which brings some new features for physical quantities including the marginally circular photon orbit, the deflection angle, the observational gravitational lensing variables and the time delay between two relativistic images. There is a critical value of the coupling parameter for existence of the marginally circular photon orb…
We consider an extension of the Weyl-Cartan-Weitzenböck (WCW) and teleparallel gravity, in which the Weitzenböck condition of the exact cancellation of curvature and torsion in a Weyl-Cartan geometry is inserted into the gravitational action via a Lagrange multiplier. In the standard metric formulation of the WCW model, the flatness of the space-time is removed by imposing the Weitzenböck condition in the Weyl-Cartan geometry, where the dynamical variables are the space-time metric, the Weyl vector and the torsion tensor, respectively. However, once the Weitzenböck condition is imposed on the …
The ambition of the present work is to highlight the phenomena of strong gravitational lensing and deflection angle for the photons coupling with Weyl tensor in a Kiselev black hole. Here, we have extended the prior work of Chen and Jing \cite{1} for Schwarzschild black hole to Kiselev black hole. For this purpose, the equation of motion for the photons coupled to Weyl tensor, null geodesic and equation of photon sphere in a Kiselev black hole spacetime have been formulated. It is found that the equation of motion of the photons depends not only on the coupling between photon and Weyl tensor, …
In this paper, we use the Gauss Bonnet theorem to obtain the deflection angle by the photons coupled to Weyl tensor in a Schwarzschild black hole and Schwarzschild-like black hole in bumblebee gravity in the weak limit approximation. To do so, we first calculate the corresponding optical metrics, and then we find the Gaussian curvature to use in Gauss-Bonnet theorem, which is first done by Gibbons and Werner. Hence, in the leading order terms we show the deflection angle, that is affected by the coupling between the photon and Weyl tensor, and there is a deviation from the deflecting angle as …
We study here, using the Mannheim-Kazanas solution of Weyl conformal theory, the mass decomposition in the representative subsample of $57$ early-type elliptical lens galaxies of the SLACS on board the HST. We begin by showing that the solution need not be an exclusive solution of conformal gravity but can also be viewed as a solution of a class of $f(R)$ gravity theories coupled to non-linear electrodynamics thereby rendering the ensuing results more universal. Since lensing involves light bending, we shall first show that the solution adds to Schwarzschild light bending caused by the luminou…
We study light propagation and gravitational lensing in scalar-tensor theories of gravity by using a static, axisymmetric exterior solution. The solution has asymptotic flatness properties and is reduced to Voorhees's one in the case of a constant scalar field. Our studies are done by using a technique of the conformal transformation such that their results are independent of details of scalar-tensor theories. For some specific cases, we analytically obtain a deflection angle of the light path and find that it can become negative. The appearance of a negative deflection angle indicates ``refle…
In this paper we explore the physical consequences of assuming Weyl invariance of the laws of gravity from the classical standpoint exclusively. Actual Weyl invariance requires to replace the underlying Riemannian geometrical structure of the background spacetimes by Weyl integrable geometry (WIG). We show that gauge freedom, a distinctive feature of Weyl invariant theories of gravity, leads to very unusual consequences. For instance, within the cosmological setting in a WIG-based conformal invariant gravity theory, also known as conformal general relativity (CGR), a static universe is physica…
We consider the Bianchi identity as a field equation for the distortion of the shapes of images produced by weak gravitational lensing. Using the spin coefficient formalism of Newman and Penrose [1962], we show that certain complex components of the Weyl and Ricci curvature tensors are directly related to fundamental observables in weak gravitational lensing. In the case of weak gravitational fields, we then show that the Bianchi identity provides a field equation for the Ricci tensor assuming a known Weyl tensor. From the Bianchi identity, we derive the integral equation for weak lensing pres…
Light deflection offers an unbiased test of Weyl's gravity since no assumption on the conformal factor needs to be made. In this second paper of our series ``Light deflection in Weyl gravity'', we analyze the constraints imposed by light deflection experiments on the linear parameter of Weyl's theory. Regarding solar system experiments, the recent CASSINI Doppler measurements are used to infer an upper bound, $\sim 10^{-19} $m$^{-1}$, on the absolute value of the above Weyl parameter. In non-solar system experiments, a condition for unbound orbits together with gravitational mirage observation…
We discuss gravitational lensing in the Kehagias-Sfetsos space-time emerging in the framework of Hořava-Lifshitz gravity. In weak lensing we show that there are three regimes, depending on the value of $\bar λ=1/ωd^{2}$, where $ω$ is the Hořava-Lifshitz parameter and $d$ characterizes the lensing geometry. When $\bar λ$ is close to zero, light deflection typically produces two images, as in Schwarzschild lensing. For very large $\bar λ$ the space-time approaches flatness, therefore there is only one undeflected image. In the intermediate range of $\bar λ$ only the upper focused image is produc…
An exact solution is obtained for the gravitational bending of light in static, spherically symmetric metrics which includes the Schwarzschild-de Sitter spacetime and also the Mannheim-Kazanas metric of conformal Weyl gravity. From the exact solution, we obtain a small bending-angle-approximation for a lens system where the source, lens and observer are co-aligned. This expansion improves previous calculations where we systematically avoid parameter ranges that correspond to non-existent null trajectories. The linear coefficient $γ$ characteristic to conformal gravity is shown to contribute en…
Weak gravitational lensing is normally assumed to have only two principle effects: a magnification of a source and a distortion of the sources shape in the form of a shear. However, further distortions are actually present owing to changes in the gravitational field across the scale of the ray bundle of light propagating to us, resulting in the familiar arcs in lensed images. This is normally called the flexion, and is approximated by Taylor expanding the shear and magnification across the image plane. However, the physical origin of this effect arises from higher-order corrections in the geod…
A `bouncing' cosmological model is proposed in the context of a Weyl-invariant scalar-tensor (WIST) theory of gravity. In addition to being Weyl-invariant the theory is U(1)-symmetric and has a conserved global charge. The entire cosmic background evolution is accounted for by a complex scalar field that evolves in the static `comoving' frame. Its (dimensional) modulus $χ$ regulates the dynamics of masses and the apparent space expansion. Cosmological redshift is essentially due to the cosmic evolution of the Rydberg constant in the comoving frame. The temporal evolution of $χ$ is analogous to…
We consider the Weyl-Dirac theory within the framework of the weak field approximation and show that the resulting gravitational potential differs from that of Newtonian by a repulsive correction term increasing with distance. The scale of the correction term appears to be determined by the time variation rate of the gravitational coupling. It is shown that if the time variation rate of gravitational coupling is adopted from observational bounds, the theory can explain the rotation curves of typical spiral galaxies without resorting to dark matter. To check the consistency of our theoretical m…
The gravitational deflection angle of light for an observer and source at finite distance from a lens object has been studied by Ishihara et al. [Phys. Rev. D, 94, 084015 (2016)], based on the Gauss-Bonnet theorem with using the optical metric. Their approach to finite-distance cases is limited within an asymptotically flat spacetime. By making several assumptions, we give an interpretation of their definition from the observer's viewpoint: The observer assumes the direction of a hypothetical light emission at the observer position and makes a comparison between the fiducial emission direction…
Proposed in this paper is a possible interaction which exists in nature - inertial interaction. It gives matter an inertia and inertial mass. The formula of inertial mass has been derived. It is possible that inertial interaction leads to the redshifts of quasars, the rotation curve of spiral galaxy, the accelerating expansion of the universe, and the stronger gravitational lens effects of quasars, galaxies, or clusters of galaxies. Einstein's Gravitational Equation has been modified. Gravitational redshift, perihelion precession, and bending of light in spherically symmetric vacuum gravitatio…
In this thesis we study aspects of strong-field gravitational lensing by black holes in general relativity, with a particular focus on the role of integrability and chaos in geodesic motion. We first investigate binary black hole shadows using the Majumdar-Papapetrou static binary black hole (or di-hole) solution. It is shown that the propagation of null geodesics on this spacetime background is a natural example of chaotic scattering. We demonstrate that the binary black hole shadows exhibit a self-similar fractal structure akin to the Cantor set. Next, we use techniques from the field of non…
We discuss a possible extension of calculations of the bending angle of light in a static, spherically symmetric and asymptotically flat spacetime to a non-asymptotically flat case. We examine a relation between the bending angle of light and the Gauss-Bonnet theorem by using the optical metric. A correspondence between the deflection angle of light and the surface integral of the Gaussian curvature may allow us to take account of the finite distance from a lens object to a light source and a receiver. Using this relation, we propose a method for calculating the bending angle of light for such…
