Simulation of microlensing lightcurves by combining contouring and rayshooting

The contouring methods described by Lewis et al. (1993) and Witt (1993) are very efficient and elegant for obtaining the magnification of a point source moving along a straight track in the source plane. The method is, however, not very efficient for extended sources, because the amplification needs to be computed for numerous parallel tracks and then convolved with the source profile. Rayshooting is an efficient algorithm for relatively large sources, but the computing time increases with the inverse of the source area for a given noise level. This poster presents a hybrid method, using the contouring method in order to find only those parts of the lens area that contribute to the light curve through the rayshooting. Calculations show that this method has the potential to be $10$--$10^5$ times more efficient than crude rayshooting techniques.Comment: 2 pages, no figures. Uses crckapb.sty. To appear in the Proceedings of the IAU Symposium 173: ``Astrophysical Applications of Gravitational Lensing'', Kluwer Academic Publishers, Eds.: C. S. Kochanek and J. N. Hewitt. Also available, with addditional information, through http://www.uio.no/~steinhh/index.htm

Separating intrinsic and microlensing variability using parallax measurements

In gravitational lens systems with 3 or more resolved images of a quasar, the intrinsic variability may be unambiguously separated from the microlensing variability through parallax measurements from 3 observers when there is no relative motion of the lens masses (Refsdal 1993). In systems with fewer than 3 resolved images, however, this separation is not straightforward. A general approach that may be used for this purpose is presented. For simplicity, only the one-dimensional case is considered in detail: Given a well-sampled time series of the observed flux at two points in space with a known separation, choosing a velocity $v_{\perp}$ of the observers perpendicular to the line of sight determines the microlensing magnification history, and thereby also the intrinsic variability. The velocity is chosen by minimizing some measure ($\chi^2$) of the residual intrinsic variability. In many cases this gives a close approximation to the true magnification. In cases where the relative motion of the lensing point masses is important, only a partial separation will be possible.Comment: 2 pages LaTeX, no figures. Uses crckapb.sty. To appear in the Proceedings of the IAU Symposium 173: ``Astrophysical Applications of Gravitational Lensing'', Kluwer Academic Publishers, Eds.: C. S. Kochanek and J. N. Hewitt. Also available, with additional information, through http://www.uio.no/~steinhh/index.htm

The microlensing events in Q2237+0305A: No case against small masses/large sources

It is demonstrated that the 1988-90 microlensing events in image A of Q2237+0305 reported by Racine (1992) do not exclude microlensing models with very low average mass, making the source radius larger than the projected Einstein radius $\eta_0$ (Refsdal and Stabell 1991, 1993). This is contrary to what has been claimed by Witt and Mao (1994). Since these events are the best resolved microlensing events recorded in Q2237+0305, further work should not exclude the possibility of a large source when interpreting lightcurve data.Comment: 2 pages, 1 figure. Uses crckapb.sty. To appear in the Proceedings of the IAU Symposium 173: ``Astrophysical Applications of Gravitational Lensing'', Kluwer Academic Publishers, Eds.: C. S. Kochanek and J. N. Hewitt. Also available through http://www.uio.no/~steinhh/index.htm

EUV Sunspot Plumes Observed with SOHO

Bright EUV sunspot plumes have been observed in five out of nine sunspot regions with the Coronal Diagnostic Spectrometer -- CDS on SOHO. In the other four regions the brightest line emissions may appear inside the sunspot but are mainly concentrated in small regions outside the sunspot areas. These results are in contrast to those obtained during the Solar Maximum Mission, but are compatible with the Skylab mission results. The present observations show that sunspot plumes are formed in the upper part of the transition region, occur both in magnetic unipolar-- and bipolar regions, and may extend from the umbra into the penumbra.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, to be published in ApJ Letter

Testing the Equivalence Principle by Lamb shift Energies

The Einstein Equivalence Principle has as one of its implications that the non-gravitational laws of physics are those of special relativity in any local freely-falling frame. We consider possible tests of this hypothesis for systems whose energies are due to radiative corrections, i.e. which arise purely as a consequence of quantum field theoretic loop effects. Specifically, we evaluate the Lamb shift transition (as given by the energy splitting between the $2S_{1/2}$ and $2P_{1/2}$ atomic states) within the context of violations of local position invariance and local Lorentz invariance, as described by the $T H \epsilon\mu$ formalism. We compute the associated red shift and time dilation parameters, and discuss how (high-precision) measurements of these quantities could provide new information on the validity of the equivalence principle.Comment: 40 pages, latex, epsf, 1 figure, final version which appears in Physical Review

Dirac theory within the Standard-Model Extension

The modified Dirac equation in the Lorentz-violating Standard-Model Extension (SME) is considered. Within this framework, the construction of a hermitian Hamiltonian to all orders in the Lorentz-breaking parameters is investigated, discrete symmetries and the first-order roots of the dispersion relation are determined, and various properties of the eigenspinors are discussed.Comment: 11 pages REVTe

A New Test of the Einstein Equivalence Principle and the Isotropy of Space

Recent research has established that nonsymmetric gravitation theories like Moffat's NGT predict that a gravitational field singles out an orthogonal pair of polarization states of light that propagate with different phase velocities. We show that a much wider class of nonmetric theories encompassed by the $\chi g$ formalism predict such violations of the Einstein equivalence principle. This gravity-induced birefringence of space implies that propagation through a gravitational field can alter the polarization of light. We use data from polarization measurements of extragalactic sources to constrain birefringence induced by the field of the Galaxy. Our new constraint is $10^8$ times sharper than previous ones.Comment: 21 pages, Latex, 3 Postscript figure

Dynamical Lorentz simmetry breaking from 3+1 Axion-Wess-Zumino model

We study the renormalizable abelian vector-field models in the presence of the Wess-Zumino interaction with the pseudoscalar matter. The renormalizability is achieved by supplementing the standard kinetic term of vector fields with higher derivatives. The appearance of fourth power of momentum in the vector-field propagator leads to the super-renormalizable theory in which the $\beta$-function, the vector-field renormalization constant and the anomalous mass dimension are calculated exactly. It is shown that this model has the infrared stable fixed point and its low-energy limit is non-trivial. The modified effective potential for the pseudoscalar matter leads to the possible occurrence of dynamical breaking of the Lorentz symmetry. This phenomenon is related to the modification of Electrodynamics by means of the Chern-Simons (CS) interaction polarized along a constant CS vector. Its presence makes the vacuum optically active that has been recently estimated from astrophysical data. We examine two possibilities for the CS vector to be time-like or space-like, under the assumption that it originates from v.e.v. of some pseudoscalar matter and show that only the latter one is consistent in the framework of the AWZ model, because a time-like CS vector makes the vacuum unstable under pairs creation of tachyonic photon modes with the finite vacuum decay rate.Comment: 33 pages, no Figures, Plain TeX, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Wave propagation in linear electrodynamics

The Fresnel equation governing the propagation of electromagnetic waves for the most general linear constitutive law is derived. The wave normals are found to lie, in general, on a fourth order surface. When the constitutive coefficients satisfy the so-called reciprocity or closure relation, one can define a duality operator on the space of the two-forms. We prove that the closure relation is a sufficient condition for the reduction of the fourth order surface to the familiar second order light cone structure. We finally study whether this condition is also necessary.Comment: 13 pages. Phys. Rev. D, to appea

Effective dissipative dynamics for polarized photons

In the framework of open quantum systems, the propagation of polarized photons can be effectively described using quantum dynamical semigroups. These extended time-evolutions induce irreversibility and dissipation. Planned, high sensitive experiments, both in the laboratory and in space, will be able to put stringent bounds on these non-standard effects.Comment: 15 pages, plain-TeX, no figure