A novel gravitational lensing feature by wormholes

Abstract

Horizonless compact objects with light rings (or photon spheres) are becoming increasingly popular in recent years for several reasons. In this paper, we show that a horizonless object such as a wormhole of Morris–Thorne type can have two photon spheres. In particular, we show that, in addition to the one present outside a wormhole throat, the throat can itself act as an effective photon sphere. Such wormholes exhibit two sets of relativistic Einstein ring systems formed due to strong gravitational lensing. We consider a previously obtained wormhole solution as a specific example. If such type of wormhole casts a shadow at all, then the inner set of the relativistic Einstein rings will form the outer bright edge of the shadow. Such a novel lensing feature might serve as a distinguishing feature between wormholes and other celestial objects as far as gravitational lensing is concerned.