Retro-MACHO Lensing of Schwarzschild Black Hole in The Solar System Neighborhood
Rafa S. Nadhil, Premana W. Premadi

Astronomy Study Program, FMIPA, Institut Teknologi Bandung
Bosscha Observatory, FMIPA, Institut Teknologi Bandung

Abstract

Specific case of gravitational lensing configuration where light trajectory is deflected and turned around resulting in an image that can be seen by an observer located between the lens and the light source is called retrolensing. We do computational retrolensing experiment using our Sun as the light source, Earth as the observer, and a Schwarzschild black hole acting as the lens located at several distance points in the periphery of the solar system and calculate the apparent magnitude of the lens images. We found that the most prominent effect came from the variation of mass while the effect of varying the distance between observer and lens is not significant as the range that we consider is still in the neighbourhood of our solar system. We also found that the image brightness peaked at perfect alignment and falls off rapidly until around 0.0378 radians and continue to decrease more gently towards larger angle. Even though the computed image brightness in general is still too low for the current observational technology, observation is still possible using retrolensing method to discover larger mass black holes if they happened to be in the solar system neighbourhood.

Keywords: Gravitational Lensing, Black Hole, Solar System

Topic: EARTH, ATMOSPHERIC, AND SPACE SCIENCE