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Concept
Gravitational lens
Summary
A gravitational lens is a distribution of matter (such as a cluster of galaxies) or a point particle between a distant light source and an observer that is capable of bending the light from the source as the light travels toward the observer. This effect is known as gravitational lensing, and the amount of bending is one of the predictions of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity. Treating light as corpuscles travelling at the speed of light, Newtonian physics also predicts the bending of light, but only half of that predicted by general relativity.
Although Einstein made unpublished calculations on the subject in 1912, Orest Khvolson (1924) and Frantisek Link (1936) are generally credited with being the first to discuss the effect in print. However, this effect is more commonly associated with Einstein, who published an article on the subject in 1936.
Fritz Zwicky posited in 1937 that the effect could allow galaxy clusters to act as gravitational lenses. It was not until 1979 that this effect was confirmed by observation of the Twin QSO SBS 0957+561.
Unlike an optical lens, a point-like gravitational lens produces a maximum deflection of light that passes closest to its center, and a minimum deflection of light that travels furthest from its center. Consequently, a gravitational lens has no single focal point, but a focal line. The term "lens" in the context of gravitational light deflection was first used by O.J. Lodge, who remarked that it is "not permissible to say that the solar gravitational field acts like a lens, for it has no focal length". If the (light) source, the massive lensing object, and the observer lie in a straight line, the original light source will appear as a ring around the massive lensing object (provided the lens has circular symmetry). If there is any misalignment, the observer will see an arc segment instead.
This phenomenon was first mentioned in 1924 by the St. Petersburg physicist Orest Khvolson, and quantified by Albert Einstein in 1936.
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