Acquiring the Lefschetz thimbles: efficient evaluation of the diffraction integral for lensing in wave optics

ABSTRACT Evaluating the Kirchhoff–Fresnel diffraction integral is essential in studying wave effects in astrophysical lensing, but is often intractable because of the highly oscillatory integrand. A recent breakthrough was made by exploiting the Picard–Lefschetz theory: the integral can be performed along the ‘Lefschetz thimbles’ in the complex domain where the integrand is not oscillatory but rapidly converging. The application of this method, however, has been limited by both the unfamiliar concepts involved and the low numerical efficiency of the method used to find the Lefschetz thimbles. In this paper, we give simple examples of the Lefschetz thimbles and define the ‘flow lines’ that facilitate the understanding of the concepts. Based on this, we propose new ways to obtain the Lefschetz thimbles with high numerical efficiency, which provide an effective tool for studying wave effects in astrophysical lensing.