Gravitational microlensing of fractal sources

Abstract

Gravitational microlensing has proven to be a powerful tool in the study of quasars, providing some of the strongest limits on the scales of structure in the central engine. Typically sources are considered to be smoothly varying on some particular scale; such simple sources result in recognisable time scales in microlensing light curves from which the size of the source can be determined. Various emission processes, however, result in sources with a fractal appearance, possessing structure on a range of scales. Here, the gravitational microlensing of such fractal sources at the heart of quasars is considered. It is shown that the resulting light curves reflect the fractal nature of the sources, possessing pronounced structure at various scales, markedly different to the case with the random distribution of emission clouds that are typically considered. Hence, the determination of a characteristic scale of variability in a microlensing light curve may not necessarily reveal the size of the individual emission clouds, the key value that is required to determine the physical state of the emission region, rather it may correspond to a particular hierarchy in a fractal structure. Current X-ray satellites can detect such fractal structure via the monitoring of gravitationally lensed quasars during a microlensing event, providing a test of high energy emission processes in quasars.