Negative time delay in strongly naked singularity lensing

Abstract

We model the supermassive galactic center of the Milky Way galaxy as a strongly naked singularity lens described by the Janis-Newman-Winicour metric. This metric has an ordinary mass and massless scalar charge parameters. For very accurate results, we use the Virbhadra-Ellis lens equation for computations. The galactic center serving as gravitational lens gives rise to 4 images: 2 images on the same side as the source and 2 images on the opposite side of the source from the optic axis. We compute positions and time delays of these images for many values of the angular source position. The time delays of primary images decrease with an increase in angular source position and are always negative. The time delays of the other 3 images are negative for small angular source position; however, they increase with an increase in angular source position. Such observations would support strongly naked singularity interpretation of the galactic center and, if ever observed, would disprove the cosmic censorship hypothesis proposed by Roger Penrose as well as a weaker version by Virbhadra that allows existence of weakly, but not marginally and strongly naked singularities.