Bremen 2017 – scientific programme

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GR: Fachverband Gravitation und Relativitätstheorie

GR 12: Didaktische Aspekte der Relativitätstheorie

GR 12.2: Talk

Thursday, March 16, 2017, 09:10–09:30, SFG 0140

Empirical exploration of spacetimes with bundles of light rays — •Thomas Müller — Haus der Astronomie / MPIA, Heidelberg

Studying the trajectories of light rays around black hole spacetimes is a standard task in an introductory course to general relativity. Based on this knowledge, students can already implement a simple ray tracing algorithm to visualize how a black hole geometrically distorts the Milky Way background.

For more advanced explorations of how curved spacetime influences light, a whole bundle of light rays has to be traced. This can be realized for example by additionally integrating the Jacobian equation and the equation for the parallel transport of a Sachs basis. In this talk I discuss how interactive visualization of these bundles can help to empirical explore gravitational lensing effects in different spacetimes.