Numerical estimation of the curvature of a light wavefront in a weak gravitational field

Abstract

The geometry of a light wavefront evolving in the 3--space associated with a post-Newtonian relativistic spacetime from a flat wavefront is studied numerically by means of the ray tracing method. For a discretization of the bidimensional wavefront the surface fitting technique is used to determine the curvature of this surface at each vertex of the mesh. The relationship between the curvature of a wavefront and the change of the arrival time at different points on the Earth is also numerically discussed.