On Relativistic Corrections to Microlensing Effects: Applications to the Galactic Black Hole

A. O. Petters

Published 2002-08-28, updated 2002-09-16Version 2

The standard treatment of gravitational lensing by a point mass lens M is based on a weak-field deflection angle a = 2/x, where x = (r c^2)/(2 G M) with r the distance of closest approach to the mass of a lensed light ray. It was shown that for a point mass lens, the total magnification and image centroid shift of a point source remain unchanged by relativistic corrections of second order in 1/x. This paper considers these issues analytically taking into account the relativistic images, under three standard lensing configuration assumptions, for a Schwarzschild black hole lens with background point and extended sources having arbitrary surface brightness profiles. We apply our results to the Galactic black hole for lensing scenarios where our assumptions hold. We show that a single factor characterizes the full relativistic correction to the weak-field image centroid and magnification. As the lens-source distance increases, the relativistic correction factor strictly decreases. In particular, we find that for point and extended sources about 10 pc behind the black hole (which is a distance significantly outside the tidal disruption radius of a sun-like source), the relativistic correction factor is miniscule, of order 10^{-14}. Therefore, for standard lensing configurations, any detectable relativistic corrections to microlensing by the Galactic black hole will most likely have to come from sources significantly closer to the black hole.