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

TL;DR

This paper presents a numerical method to estimate the curvature of a light wavefront in a weak gravitational field using ray tracing and surface fitting, linking wavefront curvature to arrival time variations on Earth.

Contribution

It introduces a numerical approach combining ray tracing and surface fitting to analyze wavefront curvature in a relativistic context, which is a novel application.

Findings

Wavefront curvature can be numerically estimated in a weak gravitational field.

The curvature relates to variations in light arrival times on Earth.

The method provides insights into gravitational effects on light propagation.

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.