Singularity theory and gravitational lensing. With a foreword by David Spergel (Q5941814)

A gravitational lense is the gravitational analogue to an optical lense. According to Einstein's theory, massive objects form a gravitational lense because in the presence of masses, light rays are curved towards the mass. This is a well-developed monograph on gravitational lensing both from the observational and from the mathematical points of view. However, also independent of the present interest in gravitational lensing, this book is a good source for several types of singularity theories. In the mathematical part, the following items are carefully deduced: Gravitational lens potentials, critical points and stability (here are included: Morse theory, Thom catastrophe theory and Arnold singularity theory), Betti numbers and Morse inequalities, global geometry of caustics. Index and bibliography are very carefully done. Note: The reference list contains the author ``Perlic'', but this must read ``Perlick''.