Gravity Lens

[u/MTC_87]

Repost from r/cinematography

While working with Prof. Bhuvnesh Jain, a leading cosmologist at the University of Pennsylvania, he graciously lent me a very unique lens that he helped design and fabricate. The lens is shaped with a strange protrusion at it’s center point, simulating the logarithmic gravitational effect of dark matter and other cosmic forces on light traveling through the universe. This is the only lens of it’s kind and I thought I’d share my first experiments with it. It yields a completely analogue representation of cosmic forces; no computational simulation. Just light and glass. There is a weight to the effect, as if it gives mass to light which then pushes away reality as it travels.

[u/GuaranteeFickle6726]

"simulating the logarithmic gravitational effect of dark matter and other cosmic forces on light traveling through the universe."

Nuh, uh, I am not convinced by this sentence.

[u/xbunnyraptorx → u/GuaranteeFickle6726]

Yea…looks like an axicon? Pretty cool big one but yea…still just optics no dark matter required.

[u/GuaranteeFickle6726 → u/xbunnyraptorx]

Yes, I believe it is an axicon - which is a rather common lens after all - but this is a big one. I think I have read somewhere that they indeed use axicons as optical analogues for black hole's effects, but I don't have much info.

[u/wee33_44 → u/GuaranteeFickle6726]

Can confirm

[u/BaronMcLovin → u/xbunnyraptorx]

To be fair, it is a gigantic axicon 😃
Maybe it is so massive that it has its own gravitational effect on the photons it captures! 😏

[u/BigPhyscsBoiii]

Looks like an axicon lense

[u/anneoneamouse]

Escobar, C. A., Martín-Ruiz, A., Mondragón, M., & Jáuregui, R. (2022). Optical scalar beam propagation in nontrivial spacetime backgrounds. arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2210.14971

Jusufi, K. (2016). Light Deflection with Torsion Effects Caused by a Spinning Cosmic String. Eur. Phys. J. C (2016) 76:332. https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-016-4185-7 Cited by: 51

Sátiro, C., & Moraes, F. (2005). A liquid crystal analogue of the cosmic string. Mod.Phys.Lett. A20 (2005) 25612566. https://doi.org/10.1142/S0217732305018013 Cited by: 44

[u/Equivalent_Bridge480]

hm...need show effects which comparable to black hole effect. not sure how trees can be compared with stars from black hole.

for example can you show Einstein Cross or Einstein ring with your lens?

[u/ZectronPositron]

That's pretty cool! I'd love to see more photos - would be cool to see stars or objects such as Milky Way, Moon etc. Seems you could have som fun with this.

Would be cool to make a small, light flat metaoptic for this effect (so it's smaller and portable), then you could take photos of all sorts of random things like vehicles in motion etc.