Paper detail

Microlensing of pulsar radiation in the Galactic Center

We investigate the possibility of identifying massive objects (lenses) in the Galactic Center region (GC) by means of pulsar timing. The well known intensity change due to microlensing is found to be less important. For typical stellar masses, the flux magnification can be significant only if the lens passes very close to the pulsar--Earth axis. We show that in the case of a pulsar the time varying travel-time delay, which is observable because of the pulsating nature of pulsar radiation, is a much more powerful tool to investigate mass distributions in the GC. We find that a travel-time delay is measurable even for rather large distances between the lens and the pulsar--Earth axis. The time varying travel-time delay can be used to determine the mass of the lens and the ratio of the transverse velocity to the minimum impact parameter. Based on Monte Carlo simulations of synthetic data sets we give the expected accuracies in the parameter determination for various masses. We argue that pulsars found behind the very center of our Galaxy would provide an excellent opportunity to test the mass distribution in the Galactic nucleus, and therefore to distinguish between a super massive black hole (SMBH) and a super-dense star cluster (SDSC) within the central 0.1 pc.