Gravitational lensing by a rotating massive object in a plasma

We study gravitational lensing in the vicinity of a slowly rotating massive object surrounded by a plasma. We have studied two effects: (i) the influence of the frame dragging on the deflection angle of the light ray in the presence of plasma (ii) Faraday rotation of the polarization plane of the light. We derive the expression for the lensing angle in a non-diagonal space-time in the weak field regime in the presence of plasma and discuss it for the spacetime metric of the slowly rotating object. The obtained deflection angle depends on (i) the frequency of the electromagnetic wave, due to the dispersion properties of the plasma; (ii) the gravitational mass M; and (iii) the angular momentum J of the gravitational lens. We studied the influence of rotation of the gravitational lens on the magnification of brightness of the source star in the case of microlensing and have shown that it is negligibly small. For the completeness of our study the effect of the Faraday rotation of the polarization plane is considered.