Optical simulations of gravitational effects

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SUMMARY

The discussion centers on the interpretation of figure 4 from a paper related to optical simulations of gravitational effects, specifically regarding red and blue shifts in light beams. The participant grapples with understanding how the deflections of peaks in an airy beam's intensity distribution indicate a red shift effect, despite initial confusion about the implications of spatial frequency. It is concluded that the observed shifts are a complex interplay between blue and red shifts, with figure 4 illustrating how intensity variations affect the perceived shifts in light.

PREREQUISITES
  • Understanding of gravitational lensing and its effects on light
  • Familiarity with optical beam patterns, specifically airy beams
  • Knowledge of red shift and blue shift phenomena in astrophysics
  • Basic principles of intensity distribution in optical physics
NEXT STEPS
  • Research gravitational lensing and its impact on light propagation
  • Study the properties of airy beams and their applications in optics
  • Explore the mathematical foundations of red shift and blue shift
  • Investigate intensity distribution analysis in optical simulations
USEFUL FOR

Physics students, optical physicists, and researchers interested in gravitational effects on light and the interpretation of optical simulations.

bartrocs
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I'm preparing a poster presentation on the following paper for a physics course:
http://t.co/xiCLV7Y0ZH

I do not understand how figure 4 tells us about the red/blue shift. Just from the deflections of the peaks of the airy beam, as well as the deformation, how are we able to infer that there is a red shift effect?

I tried explaining this to myself by the spatial frequency of the observed peaks, however I realized that a beam that is escaping from a gravitational well should appear red shifted, yet this seemed to imply the opposite. I then realized that we are looking at an intensity distribution, so now I am confused as to how we can infer that a red shift type effect is present
 
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This seems quite deep so I'm not sure, but I take figure 4 as the combination of blue shift then red shift which varies in a complex manner relative to beam intensity so the apparent shift would be the difference between the 2? The bottom c,d shows "centered" on 0 shift meaning no displacement, no shift, both high and low intensity beams are not shifted. I'm going to let it sink in for a while and read it again! Quite interesting!
 
In the bottom two, they've just shifted the peaks so that they line up to make stretching and squashing effect more apparent.
 

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