Galactic microlensing by backreacted massless wormholes

Abstract

We study here a novel application of Kim \& Lee charged wormholes assuming them to be dark halo objects playing the role of lenses in the Galactic microlensing with source stars belonging to the Galactic Bulge and the Large Magellanic Cloud. First, we observe that both the backreacted scalar ($\alpha $) and electrically ($Q$) charged wormholes have the same zero ADM mass as has the background Ellis-Bronnikov wormhole having a special equation of state parameter $\gamma=-1$. In particular, we argue that, for $\alpha\neq 0$, the solution formally resembles, but can at best be sourcewise different from, that of the background wormhole. The charge ($Q\neq 0$) thus provides an extra degree of freedom that introduces a non-trivial redshift function $\Phi$ to the background, alters its throat radius to $r_{th}$, yet keeps the wormhole massless. Second, we focus on this electrically charged case and calculate the light deflection angle up to 4$^{th}$ PPN order, analyze the effect of $Q$ on the lensing observables such as the image positions, magnification, centroid and time delay of images of the source stars. Third, we analyze the probabilistic features such as optical depth and event rate estimated on the basis of the hypothesis that the wormhole lens could be bound or unbound to our Galaxy. Finally, we report an intriguing qualitative prediction that, compared to the Schwarzschild black hole, the Paczy\'{n}ski light curves of the electrically charged wormhole are much dimmer that also show characteristic gutters at the times the source enters and exits the Einstein ring. \textit{The gutters gradually come together as $Q$ approaches the extreme limit $r_{th}/\sqrt{2}$, at which the Einstein radius $R_{E}$ vanishes so that the source crosses it instantly.} It is speculated that re-analyzing past data on Galactic microlensing may betray the presence of charged wormholes.