A fast algorithm for simulating light curves of stars at extreme magnification affected by microlensing

TL;DR

This paper introduces a rapid algorithm for simulating the light curves of distant stars undergoing extreme microlensing, facilitating analysis of high-magnification events observed at high redshift.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel, efficient computational method that uses low-resolution deflection fields to accurately model microlensing light curves near critical curves.

Findings

Algorithm significantly reduces computation time.

Accurately reproduces light curves for high-magnification microlensing events.

Applicable to distant stars at high redshift.

Abstract

We present a fast algorithm to produce light curves of distant stars undergoing microlensing near critical curves. The need of these type of algorithms is motivated by recent observations of microlensing events of distant stars at high redshift and at extreme magnification factors. The algorithm relies on a low-resolution computation of the deflection field due to an ensemble of microlenses near critical curves, and takes advantage of the slowly varying nature of the deflection field to infer the magnification of the unresolved images.