Gravitational Lensing and Extra Dimensions

Xiao-Gang He, Girish C. Joshi, Bruce H. J. McKellar

Published 1999-08-26Version 1

We study gravitational lensing and the bending of light in low energy scale (M_S) gravity theories with extra space-time dimensions n. We find that due to the presence of spin-2 Kaluza-Klein states from compactification, a correction to the deflection angle with a strong quadratic dependence on the photon energy is introduced. No deviation from the Einstein General Relativity prediction for the deflection angle for photons grazing the Sun in the visible band with 15% accuracy (90% c.l.) implies that the scale M_S has to be larger than 1.4(2/(n-2))^{1/4} TeV and approximately 4 TeV for n=2. This lower bound is comparable with that from collider physics constraints. Gravitational lensing experiments with higher energy photons can provide stronger constraints.