caa a22 4500 445386789 CHVBK 20180317143034.0 cr unu---uuuuu 170323e20111001xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s10714-011-1181-y doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s10714-011-1181-y Continuous image distortion by astrophysical thick lenses [Elektronische Daten] [Thomas Kling, Louis Bianchini] Image distortion due to weak gravitational lensing is examined using a non-perturbative method of integrating the geodesic deviation and optical scalar equations along the null geodesics connecting the observer to a distant source. The method we develop continuously changes the shape of the pencil of rays from the source to the observer with no reference to lens planes in astrophysically relevant scenarios. We compare the projected area and the ratio of semi-major to semi-minor axes of the observed elliptical image shape for circular sources from the continuous, thick-lens method with the commonly assumed thin-lens approximation. We find that for truncated singular isothermal sphere and NFW models of realistic galaxy clusters, the commonly used thin-lens approximation is accurate to better than 1 part in 104 in predicting the image area and axes ratios. For asymmetric thick lenses consisting of two massive clusters separated along the line of sight in redshift up to Δz = 0.2, we find that modeling the image distortion as two clusters in a single lens plane does not produce relative errors in image area or axes ratio more than 0.5%. Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 2011 Gravitational lensing nationallicence Weak lensing image distortion nationallicence Spin coefficient formalism nationallicence Kling Thomas Department of Physics, Bridgewater State University, 02325, Bridgewater, MA, USA aut Bianchini Louis Department of Physics, Bridgewater State University, 02325, Bridgewater, MA, USA aut General Relativity and Gravitation Springer US; http://www.springer-ny.com 43/10(2011-10-01), 2575-2603 0001-7701 43:10<2575 2011 43 10714 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10714-011-1181-y text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10714-011-1181-y text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Kling Thomas Department of Physics, Bridgewater State University, 02325, Bridgewater, MA, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Bianchini Louis Department of Physics, Bridgewater State University, 02325, Bridgewater, MA, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- General Relativity and Gravitation Springer US; http://www.springer-ny.com 43/10(2011-10-01), 2575-2603 0001-7701 43:10<2575 2011 43 10714 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer