Issue |
A&A
Volume 665, September 2022
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | A127 | |
Number of page(s) | 7 | |
Section | Numerical methods and codes | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202244027 | |
Published online | 23 September 2022 |
Fast algorithm for simulating light curves of stars at extreme magnification affected by microlensing
Instituto de Física de Cantabria (CSIC-UC),
Avda. Los Castros s/n,
39005
Santander, Spain
e-mail: jdiego@ifca.unican.es
Received:
15
May
2022
Accepted:
9
July
2022
We present a fast algorithm aimed at reproducing the light curves of distant stars undergoing microlensing near critical curves. The need for these type of algorithms has been motivated by recent observations of microlensing events of distant stars at high redshift and involving extreme magnification factors. The algorithm relies on a low-resolution computation of the deflection field due to an ensemble of microlenses near critical curves and takes advantage of the gradually varying nature of the deflection field to infer the magnification of the unresolved images. The algorithm is capable of resolving microlenses at cosmological distances with planet-sized masses, as well as typical background luminous stars of a few solar radii. Using this algorithm, light curves covering decades of relative motion between the source and the web of microcaustics, at nanoarcsec resolution, can be reproduced within a matter of minutes on a basic laptop. Classic inverse ray tracing simulations at the same resolution would take days or weeks to produce, consuming massive computational resources.
Key words: gravitational lensing: strong / methods: numerical
© J. M. Diego 2022
Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
This article is published in open access under the Subscribe-to-Open model. Subscribe to A&A to support open access publication.
Current usage metrics show cumulative count of Article Views (full-text article views including HTML views, PDF and ePub downloads, according to the available data) and Abstracts Views on Vision4Press platform.
Data correspond to usage on the plateform after 2015. The current usage metrics is available 48-96 hours after online publication and is updated daily on week days.
Initial download of the metrics may take a while.