Light deflection in general static and spherically symmetric spacetime with a homogeneous plasma

Abstract

We developed in this work a perturbative technique to compute the deflection angle of light rays in general static and spherically symmetric spacetimes with a homogeneous non-magnetic plasma. The deflection angle is expressed as a power series of $M/b$ with $M$ and $b$ being the spacetime mass and the impact parameter of the ray. The series coefficients are polynomials of the asymptotic expansion coefficients of the metric functions and the reciprocal of the asymptotic refractive index. When the plasma is dilute, the deflection angle can also be expressed as a dual series of $M/b$ and the frequency ratio between the electron plasma frequency and the asymptotic photon frequency. The series result reveals that for general SSS spacetime, the plasma at the leading order always enhances the deflection angle and therefore increases the apparent angles of the gravitational lensing images. These series results of the deflection angle are then shown to have excellent agreement with those obtained using numerical integration. The general formula of the deflection angle is then applied to the Reissner-Nordström, charged Horndeski and charged Galileon spacetimes. The effect of the plasma and characteristic parameter of the spacetimes on the deflection angles in these spacetimes was briefly discussed. In the appendix, the deflection angles in previously attempted spacetimes are re-computed and compared with the literature.