A maximum entropy method based scheme for the inversion of extended radio images in gravitationally lensed systems

Abstract

A new scheme is advanced for the process of source reconstruction (or image inversion) from extended images in gravitationally lensed systems which show multiple imaging. We suggest that forward simulations of such systems may be employed as a priori information to aid the inversion process. Several advantages are to be gained by this, chief among them being that a simulation can easily include information from more than one sets of observations of the same system, whereas the inversion schemes currently in existence operate on a single image map at a time. We present a formulation of the new scheme in terms of the Maximum Entropy Method, in which a priori information can be incorporated in a natural manner.