Gravitational lensing for wormhole with scalar field in f(R) gravity

Abstract

Horizonless compact objects with light rings are becoming more popular in recent years for numerous motives. In this paper, the conditions under which the throat of a Morris–Thorne wormhole can act as an effective photon sphere are worked out. A specific example which satisfies all the energy conditions in modified theory of gravity is considered and the formation of relativistic images is studied. We have detected photon spheres for the wormhole modeling due to the effect of strong gravitational lensing. Subsequently, we have found the expression for deflection angle in terms of the angular separation between the image and lens by determining the strong-field limit coefficients. It is found to diverge for the impact parameter corresponding to the photon sphere. We observed that the angle of Einstein ring [Formula: see text] and relativistic Einstein ring [Formula: see text] are completely distinguishable. Given the configuration of the gravitational lensing and the radii of the Einstein ring and relativistic Einstein rings, we can distinguish between a black hole and a wormhole in principle. The stability of wormholes is examined from the positivity of the shape function and satisfaction of the flare-out condition.