The ergoregion in the Kerr spacetime: properties of the equatorial circular motion
D. Pugliese, H. Quevedo
备注：
19 pages, 9 figure multi-panels; 3 Tables. This and a slightly modified version with the addition of new references and some new discussion. To appear in EPJC
We investigate in detail the circular motion of test particles on the equatorial plane of the ergoregion in the Kerr spacetime. We consider all the regions where circular motion is allowed, and we analyze the stability properties and the energy and angular momentum of the test particles. We show that the structure of the stability regions has definite features that make it possible to distinguish between black holes and naked singularities. The naked singularity case presents a very structured non-connected set of regions of orbital stability, where the presence of counterrotating particles and zero angular momentum particles for a specific class of naked singularities is interpreted as due to the presence of a repulsive field generated by the central source of gravity. In particular, we analyze the effects of the dynamical structure of the ergoregion (the union of the orbital regions for different attractor spins) on the behavior of accretion disks around the central source. The properties of the circular motion turn out to be so distinctive that they allow the introduction of a complete classification of Kerr spacetimes, each class of which is characterized by different physical effects that could be of especial relevance in observational Astrophysics. We also identify some special black hole spacetimes where these effects could be relevant.
We perform a detailed analysis of the properties of stationary observers located on the equatorial plane of the ergosphere in a Kerr spacetime, including light-surfaces. This study highlights crucial differences between black hole and the super-spinner sources. In the case of Kerr naked singularities, the results allow us to distinguish between "weak" and "strong" singularities, corresponding to spin values close to or distant from the limiting case of extreme black holes, respectively. We derive important limiting angular frequencies for naked singularities. We especially study very weak sing…
The properties of Kerr black holes (BHs)and naked singularities (NSs) are investigated by using stationary observers and their limiting frequencies. We introduce the concept of NS Killing throats and bottlenecks for slowly spinning NSs to describe the frequency of stationary observers. In particular, we show the frequency on the horizon can be used to point out a connection between BHs and NSs and to interpret the horizon in terms of frequencies. The analysis is performed on the equatorial plane of the ergoregion.
We consider equatorial motion of particles in the ergoregion of generic axially symmetric rotating black holes. We introduce the notion of zero energy observers (ZEOs) as counterparts to known zero angular observers (ZAMOs). It is shown that the trajectory of a ZEO has precisely one turning point that lies on the boundary of the ergoregion for photons and inside the ergoregion for massive particles. As a consequence, such trajectories enter the ergosphere from the white hole region under horizon and leave it crossing the horizon again (entering the black hole region). The angular velocity of Z…
This paper explores the neutral particle motion and collisional Penrose process in ergoregion of the braneworld Kerr black hole. We analyze the properties of event horizon, ergosphere and static limit. The particle collision in ergoregion via the Penrose process is investigated. Furthermore, we study the negative energy states and show that the sign of particle energy can be uniquely determined by the sign of angular momentum. In addition, we study the Wald inequality to determine the limits of energy extraction via the Penrose process and also find lower bound of the irreducible mass. The exp…
The existence of the ergoregion of the Kerr space-time has not been confirmed observationally yet. We show that the confirmation would be possible by observing the quasinormal mode in gravitational waves. As an example, using the recent population synthesis results of Pop III binary black holes, we find that the peak of the final merger mass ($M_f$) is about $50~\rm M_{\odot}$, while the fraction of the final spin $q_f = a_f/M_f > 0.7$ needed for the confirmation of a part of ergoregion is $\sim 77\%$. To confirm the frequency of the quasinormal mode, ${\rm SNR} > 35$ is needed. The standard m…
This article explores the characteristics of ergoregion, horizons and circular geodesics around a Kerr-Newman-Kasuya black hole. We investigate the effect of spin and dyonic charge parameters on ergoregion, event horizon and static limit surface of the said black hole. We observed that both electric, as well as magnetic charge parameters, results in decreasing the radii of event horizon and static limit, whereas increasing the area of ergoregion. The obtained results are compared with that acquired from Kerr and Schwarzschild black holes. Moreover, we figured out the photons orbit of circular …
We investigate the properties of the ergoregion and the location of the curvature singularities for the Kerr black hole distorted by the gravitational field of external sources. The particular cases of quadrupole and octupole distortion are studied in detail. We also investigate the scalar curvature invariants of the horizon and compare their behaviour with the case of the isolated Kerr black hole. In a certain region of the parameter space the ergoregion consists of a compact region encompassing the horizon and a disconnected part extending to infinity. The curvature singularities in the doma…
Recent numerical relativity simulations of mergers of binary black holes suggest that the maximum final value of $a/M$ is $\sim 0.95$ for the coalescence of two equal mass black holes with aligned spins of the same magnitude $a/M=0.994$ which is close to the upper limit $a/M=0.998$ of accretion spin-up shown by Thorne. Using the WKB method, we suggest that if quasinormal modes with $a/M \sim 0.95$ are detected by the second generation gravitational wave detectors, we could confirm the strong gravity space-time based on Einstein's general relativity up to $1.33M$ which is only $\sim 1.014$ time…
We consider behavior of equatorial geodesics with the negative energy in the ergoregion of a generic rotating "dirty" (surrounded by matter) black hole. It is shown that under very simple and generic conditions on the metric coefficients, there are no such circular orbits. This entails that such geodesic must originate and terminate under the event horizon. These results generalize the observation made for the Kerr metric in A. A. Grib, Yu. V. Pavlov, and V. D. Vertogradov, Mod. Phys. Lett. 29, 1450110 (2014) [arXiv:1304.7360].
We discuss the conditions for the existence of extended matter configurations orbiting in the ergoregion or close to the outer ergosurface of the Kerr black hole ("dragged" configurations). The corotating tori under consideration are perfect fluid configurations with barotropic equation of state, orbiting on the equatorial plane of the central Kerr black hole. The possibility of magnetized tori with a toroidal magnetic field is also discussed. Indications on the attractors where dragged tori can be observed are provided with the analysis of the fluid characteristics and geometrical features, r…
We study scalar test-field perturbations on top of a Kerr--black-bounce background, i.e. a family of rotating regular black holes and/or rotating traversable wormholes that can mimic Kerr black holes. We compute the quasi-normal modes for a massless field in both the regular black holes and wormhole branches, confirming the stability of the former and identifying a set of growing modes that renders the latter unstable. We further compute the superradiance amplification factors, for massless and massive fields, in the regular black hole branch, confirming that these objects superradiate, though…
In this work, we base on the second-order post-Minkowskian equations of motion, and apply an iterative technique to analytically derive the gravitational deflection of the relativistic particles in the equatorial plane of Kerr-Newman black hole with a radial (or longitudinal) and constant velocity. We find that the kinematically correctional effects on the second-order contributions to the deflection can be expressed into a very compact form, which are valid for both the massive particle and photon. Our result reduces to the previous formulation for the first-order deflection caused by a movin…
The possibility that two toroidal accretion configurations may be orbiting around a~super--massive Kerr black hole has been addressed. Such tori may be formed during different stages of the Kerr attractor accretion history. We consider the relative rotation of the tori and the corotation or counterrotation of a~single torus with respect to the Kerr attractor. We give classification of the couples of accreting and non--accreting tori in dependence on the Kerr black hole dimensionless spin. We demonstrate that only in few cases a~double accretion tori system may be formed under specific conditio…
We present a numerical code for calculating the self force on a scalar charge moving in a bound (eccentric) geodesic in the equatorial plane of a Kerr black hole. We work in the frequency domain and make use of the method of extended homogeneous solutions [Phys.\ Rev.\ D {\bf 78}, 084021 (2008)], in conjunction with mode-sum regularization. Our work is part of a program to develop a computational architecture for fast and efficient self-force calculations, alternative to time-domain methods. We find that our frequency-domain method outperforms existing time-domain schemes for small eccentricit…
In this work we analyze the effects of an external magnetic field on charged particles on equatorial circular orbits in a Kerr spacetime, both in the black hole and the naked singularity cases. Understanding these phenomena is of great importance because equatorial circular orbits are a key ingredient of simple accretion disc models. We focus on two important magnetic field configurations: a) a uniform magnetic field aligned with the angular momentum and b) a dipolar magnetic field. We center our attention on the effect of these external fields on the marginally bounded and marginally stable e…
We analyze the properties of circular orbits of test particles on the equatorial plane of a rotating central mass whose gravitational field is described by the Kerr spacetime. For rotating black holes and naked singularities we explore all the spatial regions where circular orbits can exist and analyze the behavior of the energy and the angular momentum of the corresponding test particles. In particular, we find all the radii at which a test particle can have zero angular momentum due to the repulsive gravity effects generated by naked singularities. We classify all the stability zones of circ…
Equatorial motion of test particles in the Kerr-de Sitter spacetimes is considered. Circular orbits are determined, their properties are discussed for both the black-hole and naked-singularity spacetimes, and their relevance for thin accretion discs is established.
We consider the stationary metrics that have both the black hole and the ergoregion. The class of such metric contains, in particular, the Kerr metric. We study the Cauchy problem with highly oscillatory initial data supported in a neighborhood inside the ergoregion with some initial energy $E_0$. We prove that when the time variable $x_0$ increases this solution splits into two parts: one with the negative energy $-E_1$ ending at the event horizon in a finite time, and the second part, with the energy $E_2=E_0+E_1>E_0$, escaping, under some conditions, to the infinity when $x_0\rightarrow +\i…
We study the bound orbit conditions for equatorial and eccentric orbits around a Kerr black hole both in the parameter space ($E$, $L$, $a$) representing the energy, angular momentum of the test particle, and spin of the black hole, and also ($e$, $μ$, $a$) space representing the eccentricity, inverse-latus rectum of the orbit, and spin. We apply these conditions and implement the relativistic precession (RP) model to M82X-1, which is an Intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH) system, where two high-frequency Quasi-Periodic Oscillations (HFQPOs) and a low-frequency QPO were simultaneously observed…
We present a detailed analysis of the orbital circular motion of electrically neutral test particles on the equatorial plane of the Kerr-Newman spacetime. Many details of the motion in the cases of black hole and naked singularity sources are pointed out. We identify four different types of orbital regions, which depend on the properties of the orbital angular momentum, and define four different kinds of naked singularities, according to the values of the charge-to-mass ratio of the source. It is shown that the presence of a particular type of counter-rotating test particles is sufficient to u…
Deflection angle for a light ray travelling in the equatorial plane of a rotating Kerr mass has been already calculated by various investigators. Considering the light ray to be travelling only slightly above the equatorial plane, calculations have been made for such a ray for its deflection angle. In this paper, we calculate deflection angles for the light ray at various heights, which are small compared to the impact parameter and derive corresponding analytical expressions for deflection angle.
In this paper, we revisit the possibilities of Bañados-Silk-West (BSW) effect in Kerr-Newman-Taub-NUT (KNTN) spacetime for two neutral particles moving over the equatorial plane and constant $θ$ in Boyer-Lindquist coordinate. Contrary to a previous study on this topic, we found that BSW effect for two particles confined to move over the equatorial plane is not possible. Numerical calculations shows that BSW effect in constant $θ$ geodesics is possible under certain circumstances.
For a self-gravitating particle of mass μin orbit around a Kerr black hole of mass M >> μ, we compute the O(μ/M) shift in the frequency of the innermost stable circular equatorial orbit (ISCEO) due to the conservative piece of the gravitational self-force acting on the particle. Our treatment is based on a Hamiltonian formulation of the dynamics in terms of geodesic motion in a certain locally-defined effective smooth spacetime. We recover the same result using the so-called first law of binary black-hole mechanics. We give numerical results for the ISCEO frequency shift as a function of the b…
We analyze the stability of circular geodesics for timelike as well as null geodesics of the Kerr BH spacetime with rotation parameter on the equatorial plane by Lyapunov stability analysis. Also, we verify the results of stability by presenting the phase portrait for both timelike and null geodesics. Further, by reviewing the Kosambi-Cartan-Chern (KCC) theory, we analyze the Jacobi stability for Kerr spacetime and present a comparative study of the methods used for stability analysis of geodesics.
We analytically compute the gravitational self-force correction to the gyroscope precession along slightly eccentric equatorial orbits in the Kerr spacetime, generalizing previous results for the Schwarzschild spacetime. Our results are accurate through the 9.5 post-Newtonian order and to second order in both eccentricity and rotation parameter. We also provide a post-Newtonian check of our results based on the currently known Hamiltonian for spinning binaries.
The precession of a test gyroscope along unbound equatorial plane geodesic orbits around a Kerr black hole is analyzed with respect to a static reference frame whose axes point towards the "fixed stars." The accumulated precession angle after a complete scattering process is evaluated and compared with the corresponding change in the orbital angle. Limiting results for the non-rotating Schwarzschild black hole case are also discussed.
In this paper, we show the additive separation of the Hamilton-Jacobi equation, present the 4-velocity of the test particles, and attempt to find the equatorial circular photon orbit (ECPO) in the Kerr-Sen-Taub-NUT (KSTN) solution of the low energy limit of heterotic string theory. In the process of trying to find the ECPO, we instead encounter a ring singularity that could be outside the horizon of the KSTN black hole.
The precession of a test gyroscope along stable bound equatorial plane orbits around a Kerr black hole is analyzed and the precession angular velocity of the gyro's parallel transported spin vector and the increment in precession angle after one orbital period is evaluated. The parallel transported Marck frame which enters this discussion is shown to have an elegant geometrical explanation in terms of the electric and magnetic parts of the Killing-Yano 2-form and a Wigner rotation effect.
The spacetimes obtained by Ernst's procedure for appending an external magnetic field $B$ to a seed Kerr-Newman black hole are commonly believed to be asymptotic to the static Melvin solution. We show that this is not in general true. Unless the electric charge of the black hole satisfies $Q= jB(1+ 1/4 j^2 B^4)$, where $j$ is the angular momentum of the original seed solution, an ergoregion extends all the way from the black hole horizon to infinity. We give a self-contained account of the solution-generating procedure, including including explicit formulae for the metric and the vector potent…
Discussion of the equatorial photon motion in Kerr-Newman black-hole and naked-singularity spacetimes with a non-zero cosmological constant is presented. Both repulsive and attractive cosmological constants are considered. Circular photon orbits are determined, and their stability is established. The spacetimes are divided into separated classes according to the properties of the `effective potential'. There is a special class of Kerr-Newman-de Sitter black-hole spacetimes with so-called `restricted repulsive barrier'. Further, the azimuthal motion is discussed and photon trajectories are give…
In this paper, we first investigate some aspects of frame dragging in strong gravity. The computations are carried out for the Kerr black hole and for the rotating Janis-Newman-Winicour solution, that is known to have a naked singularity on a surface at a finite radius. For the Kerr metric, a few interesting possibilities of gyroscope precession frequency, as measured by a Copernican observer outside the ergoregion, are pointed out. It is shown that for certain angular velocities of a stationary observer, this frequency might vanish exactly, close to the ergoregion. Similar computations are re…
The Detweiler-Barack-Sago redshift function for particles moving along slightly eccentric equatorial orbits around a Kerr black hole is currently known up to the second order in eccentricity, second order in spin parameter, and the 8.5 post-Newtonian order. We improve the analytical computation of such a gauge-invariant quantity by including terms up to the fourth order in eccentricity at the same post-Newtonian approximation level. We also check that our results agrees with the corresponding post-Newtonian expectation of the same quantity, calculated by using the currently known Hamiltonian f…
The rotating Ayón-Beato-García (ABG) black holes, apart from mass ($M$) and rotation parameter ($a$), has an additional charge $Q$ and encompassed the Kerr black hole as particular case when $Q=0$. We demonstrate the ergoregions of rotating ABG black holes depend on both rotation parameter $a$ and charge $Q$, and the area of the ergoregions increases with increase in the values of $Q$, when compared with the Kerr black hole and the extremal regular black hole changes with the value of $Q$. Ban{ã}dos, Silk and West (BSW) demonstrated that an extremal Kerr black hole can act as a particle accele…
In this paper we extend our previous works on spherically symmetric accretion onto black holes and super-spinars to the case in which the fluid has a finite angular momentum initially. We run 2.5D and 3D general relativistic hydrodynamic simulations of the accretion of a fat disk. We study how the accretion process changes by changing the values of the parameters of our model. We show that the value of the fluid angular momentum critically determines turn-on and off the production of powerful equatorial outflows around super-spinars. For corotating disks, equatorial outflows are efficiently ge…
We examine the behaviour of circular geodesics describing orbits of neutral test particles around an extreme Kerr-Newman black hole. It is well known that the radial Boyer-Lindquist coordinates of the prograde photon orbit $r=r_{\rm ph}$, marginally bound orbit $r=r_{\rm mb}$ and innermost stable orbit $r=r_{\rm ms}$ of the extreme Kerr black hole all coincide with the event horizon's value $r=r_+$. We find that for the extreme Kerr-Newman black hole with mass $M$, angular momentum $J$ and electric charge $Q=\pm\sqrt{M^2-J^2/M^2}$ ($|J|\le M^2$) the coordinate equalities $r_{\rm ph}=r_+$, $r_{…
We examine the evolution, under gravitational radiation reaction, of slightly eccentric equatorial orbits of point particles around Kerr black holes. Our method involves numerical integration of the Sasaki-Nakamura equation. It is discovered that such orbits decrease in eccentricity throughout most of the inspiral, until shortly before the innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO), when a critical radius $r_{\text{crit}}$ is reached beyond which the inspiralling orbits increase in eccentricity. It is shown that the number of orbits remaining in this last (eccentricity increasing) phase of the ins…
We study tidal effects on self-gravitating Newtonian stars rotating around a Kerr black hole in stable circular orbits away from the equatorial plane. Such cases are exemplified by a non-vanishing Carter's constant. Here, we calculate the tidal disruption limit (Roche limit) of the star numerically, in Fermi normal coordinates. The Roche limit is found to depend strongly on the choice of the orbit, and differs significantly from the equatorial plane result as one approaches nearly polar orbits. As expected, this difference is large when the star is close to the black hole (near to the innermos…
We report exotic orbital phenomena of spinning test particles orbiting around a Kerr black hole, i.e., some orbits of spinning particles are asymmetrical about the equatorial plane. When a nonspinning test particle orbits around a Kerr black hole in a strong field region, due to relativistic orbital precessions, the pattern of trajectories is symmetrical about the equatorial plane of the Kerr black hole. However, the patterns of the spinning particles' orbit are no longer symmetrical about the equatorial plane for some orbital configurations and large spins. We argue that these asymmetrical pa…
We study binary systems in which a stellar mass compact object spirals into a massive black hole, known as extreme mass ratio inspirals, in scenarios with a new fundamental scalar field. Earlier work has shown that, in most interesting such scenarios and to leading order in the mass ratio, the massive black holes can be adequately approximated by the Kerr metric and the imprint of the scalar field on the waveform is fully controlled by the scalar charge of the stellar mass object. Here we use this drastic simplification in the inspiral modelling and consider eccentric equatorial orbits. We stu…
We investigate stationary accretion of the collisionless Vlasov gas onto the Kerr black hole, occurring in the equatorial plane. The solution is specified by imposing asymptotic boundary conditions: at infinity the gas obeys the Maxwell-Jüttner distribution, restricted to the equatorial plane (both in positions and momenta). In the vicinity of the black hole, the motion of the gas is governed by the spacetime geometry. We compute accretion rates of the rest-mass, the energy, and the angular momentum, as well as the particle number surface density, focusing on the dependence of these quantities…
In this paper we focus on the relation between quasinormal modes (QNMs) and a rotating black hole shadows. As a specific example, we consider the quantum deformed Kerr black hole obtained via Newman--Janis--Azreg-A\"ınou algorithm. In particular, using the geometric-optics correspondence between the parameters of a QNMs and the conserved quantities along geodesics, we show that, in the eikonal limit, the real part of QNMs is related to the Keplerian frequency for equatorial orbits. To this end, we explore the typical shadow radius for the viewing angles, $θ_0=π/2$, and obtained an interesting …
In this work, we perform a detailed analysis of the equatorial motion of the charged test particles in Kerr-Newman-Taub-NUT spacetime. By working out the orbit equation in the radial direction, we examine possible orbit types. We investigate the conditions for existence of bound orbits in causality-preserving region as well as the conditions for existence of circular orbits for charged and uncharged particles. We also study the effect of NUT parameter on Newtonian orbits. Finally, we give exact analytical solutions of equations of equatorial motion for a charged test particle.
We present a calculation of the scalar field self-force (SSF) acting on a scalar-charge particle in a strong-field orbit around a Kerr black hole. Our calculation specializes to circular and equatorial geodesic orbits. The analysis is an implementation of the standard mode-sum regularization scheme: We first calculate the multipole modes of the scalar-field perturbation using numerical integration in the frequency domain, and then apply a certain regularization procedure to each of the modes. The dissipative piece of the SSF is found to be consistent with the flux of energy and angular momentu…
We study the gravitational lensing by a Kerr-Sen Black Hole arising in heterotic string theory. A closed form expression for the bending angle of light in equatorial plane of Kerr-Sen Black Hole is derived as a function of impact parameter, spin and charge of the Black Hole. Results obtained are also compared with the corresponding cases of Kerr Black Hole in general relativity. It is observed that charge parameter behaves qualitatively similar as the spin parameter for photons travelling in direct orbits while behaves differently for photons in retrograde orbits around Black Hole. As the nume…
In the present paper, we study numerically the equatorial lensing and quasiequatorial lensing by Kerr black hole pierced by a cosmic string in the strong deflection limit. We calculate the strong deflection limit coefficients and the deflection angle, which are found to depend closely on the cosmic string parameter $β$ and dimensionless spin $a_{*}$. The magnification and positions of relativistic images are also computed in the strong deflection limit and a two-dimensional lens equation is derived. The most important and outstanding effect is that the caustics drift away from the optical axis…
The general relativistic Poynting-Robertson effect is a dissipative and non-linear dynamical system obtained by perturbing through radiation processes the geodesic motion of test particles orbiting around a spinning compact object, described by the Kerr metric. Using the Melnikov method we find that, in a suitable range of parameters, chaotic behavior is present in the motion of a test particle driven by the Poynting-Robertson effect in the Kerr equatorial plane.
The data from the event horizon telescope have provided a novel view of the vicinity of the horizon of a black hole (BH), by imaging the region around the light-ring. They have also raised hopes for measuring in the near future, features of the image (or the shadow) related to higher order effects of photons traveling in these regions, such as the appearance of higher order bright rings. While the prospect of measuring these fine features of Kerr BHs is very interesting in itself, there are some even more intriguing prospects for observing novel features of possible non-Kerr objects, in the ca…
We present the first numerical calculation of the (local) metric perturbation produced by a small compact object moving on an eccentric equatorial geodesic around a Kerr black hole, accurate to first order in the mass ratio. The procedure starts by first solving the Teukolsky equation to obtain the Weyl scalar $ψ_4$ using semi-analytical methods. The metric perturbation is then reconstructed from $ψ_4$ in an (outgoing) radiation gauge, adding the appropriate non-radiative contributions arising from the shifts in mass and angular momentum of the spacetime. As a demonstration we calculate the ge…
