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Numerical estimation of the curvature of a light wavefront in a weak gravitational field

A San Miguel, F Vicente and J-F Pascual-Sánchez

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The geometry of a light wavefront evolving in the 3-space associated with a post-Newtonian relativistic spacetime from a flat wavefront is studied numerically by means of the ray tracing method. For a discretization of the bidimensional wavefront, the surface fitting technique is used to determine the curvature of this surface at each vertex of the mesh. The relationship between the curvature of a wavefront and the change of the arrival time at different points on the Earth is also numerically discussed.


PACS

04.25.Nx Post-Newtonian approximation; perturbation theory; related approximations

04.30.Nk Wave propagation and interactions

04.25.D- Numerical relativity

95.30.Sf Relativity and gravitation

04.20.Gz Spacetime topology, causal structure, spinor structure

MSC

83C50 Electromagnetic fields

83C35 Gravitational waves

Subjects

Gravitation and cosmology

Astrophysics and astroparticles

Dates

Issue 23 (7 December 2009)

Received 24 May 2009, in final form 30 August 2009

Published 30 October 2009



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