Microlensing-induced absorption-line variability

Gravitational microlensing has proven to be a powerful probe of both the structure at the heart of quasars and the mass function of compact objects in foreground lenses. This paper examines the potential of gravitational microlensing in probing the scale of structure in absorbing material within the lensing galaxy. We find that, in this high optical depth regime, significant variations in the equivalent width of absorption features can be induced, although the details of these are dependent upon the scale of structure of the absorbing material. The paper concludes with an examination of the absorption-line variability observed in the gravitationally lensed quasar PKS 1830−211, demonstrating how this may indicate the presence of small-scale structure in the cold molecular gas present within the lensing galaxy.