Description:

FRBs and gravitational waves are the only distant sources sufficiently coherent to exhibit wave optics phenomena in their propagation.  Nominally FRBs probe affects with equivalent strain h~10^{-26), one of the most sensitive observables. I discuss new observables, including precision microlensing interferometry sensitive to extragalactic planets and constraints on scalar gravity.  Wave optics presents new theoretical challenges, some of which Picard-Lefschetz theory resolves.  The introduction of complex images opens the inference of time delay measurements even when no real lensed images are formed.

Speaker: Ue-Li Pen, Professor CITA University of Toronto

Host: Professor Dr.Giacomo Fragione, Research Assistant Professor, CIERA