Abstract

Contributed Talk - Splinter Relativistic

Friday, 25 September 2020, 11:20   (virtual room J)

The same, only different -- A comparison between plasma and gravitational lensing

Xinzhong Er and Jenny Wagner
SWIFAR (Yunnan University) and ZAH (Heidelberg University)

Gravity and electro-magnetism share a lot of common characteristics. Therefore, it is possible to describe phenomena of light deflection by masses, called gravitational lensing, and light deflection by charged clouds, called plasma lensing, using the same mathematical formalism. This talk will give a synopsis of similarities and differences between gravitational and plasma lensing. Although gravitational lensing is always praised by its simplicity, not requiring complicated baryonic physics, we will show that it is exactly this multitude of baryonic interactions which allows us to break the degeneracies intrinsic in the lensing formalism in a way that does not require any specific model for the light-deflecting structure.