Publications [#345671] of Arlie O. Petters

Papers Published

1. Aazami, AB; Keeton, CR; Petters, AO, Magnification cross sections for the elliptic umbilic caustic surface, Universe, vol. 5 no. 7 (July, 2019) [doi]
   (last updated on 2020/09/06)

   Abstract:
   © 2019 by the authors. In gravitational lensing, magnification cross sections characterize the probability that a light source will have magnification greater than some fixed value, which is useful in a variety of applications. The (area) cross section is known to scale as µ−2 for fold caustics and µ−2.5 for cusp caustics. We aim to extend the results to higher-order caustic singularities, focusing on the elliptic umbilic, which can be manifested in lensing systems with two or three galaxies. The elliptic umbilic has a caustic surface, and we show that the volume cross section scales as µ−2.5 in the two-image region and µ−2 in the four-image region, where µ is the total unsigned magnification. In both cases our results are supported both numerically and analytically.