Simulating Reaction-Diffusion Waves to Model Gravitational Lensing

We are presenting a table-top analog for the astrophysical phenomenon known as Gravitational Lensing using reaction-diffusion (RD) waves, specifically the chemical Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction. Observed perturbations of BZ wave fronts propagating in a hollow, quasi-two-dimensional acrylic glass mold while interacting with spatial tree-dimensional obstacles, which act like massive gravitational wells for light, were reproduced using a simulation written in Python. The simulation produced the same effect on wavefronts in our 2D grid, as those produced by the physical 3D obstacles. We applied the laws of General Relativity to model diffusion obstacles that acts as a mass in space, creating deflection angles for the chemical wave fronts similar to the angles light rays experience while passing a massive object in space. This behavior had been tested in the computer simulation for numerical proof. The accuracy of the simulation increased as the reaction space (an N by N pixel grid) increased. The algorithm which produced the simulation runs in Θ(N³) time. After finding a balance between accuracy and efficiency, simulations were executed to replicate the experimental observations. Methods such as parallelization were used to increase the overall efficiency of the simulation.