Abstract
Although a static lens can produce no change in the brightness of an isotropic radiation field, a moving lens produces a characteristic two-sided brightness pattern that may be used to deduce the transverse velocity of the lens. The magnitude of the effect is proportional to both the transverse velocity and the strength of the lens. We suggest here that this effect provides a method for measuring the transverse velocities of clusters of galaxies; in this case the lens is gravitational and the radiation field is the isotropic microwave background. The predicted magnitude of this effect is at the present sensitivity limits of observation but is at least as large as the expected level of primordial background fluctuations.
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References
Birkinshaw, M., Gull, S. F. & Northover, K. J. E. Mon. Not. R. astr. Soc. 197, 571–592 (1981).
Boynton, P. E. Proc. IAU Symp. No. 79, 317–324 (1978).
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Birkinshaw, M., Gull, S. A test for transverse motions of clusters of galaxies. Nature 302, 315–317 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1038/302315a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/302315a0
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