We compare shadows cast by Schwarzschild black holes with those produced by two classes of naked singularities that result from gravitational collapse of spherically symmetric matter. The latter models consist of an interior naked singularity spacetime restricted to radii $r\leq R_b$, matched to Schwarzschild spacetime outside the boundary radius $R_b$. While a black hole always has a photon sphere and always casts a shadow, we find that the naked singularity models have photon spheres only if a certain parameter $M_0$ that characterizes these models satisfies $M_0\geq 2/3$, or equivalently, if $R_b\leq 3M$, where $M$ is the total mass of the object. Such models do produce shadows. However, models with $M_0<2/3$ (or $R_b>3M$) have no photon sphere and do not produce a shadow. Instead, they produce an interesting `full-moon' image. These results imply that the presence of a shadow does not by itself prove that a compact object is necessarily a black hole. The object could be a naked singularity with $M_0\geq 2/3$, and we will need other observational clues to distinguish the two possibilities. On the other hand, the presence of a full-moon image would certainly rule out a black hole and might suggest a naked singularity with $M_0<2/3$. It would be worthwhile to generalize the present study, which is restricted to spherically symmetric models, to rotating black holes and naked singularities.
Motivated by the lack of rotating solutions sourced by matter in General Relativity as well as in modified gravity theories, we extend a recently discovered exact rotating solution of the minimal Einstein-scalar theory to its counterpart in Eddington-inspired Born-Infeld gravity coupled to a Born-Infeld scalar field. This is accomplished with the implementation of a well-developed mapping between solutions of Ricci-Based Palatini theories of gravity and General Relativity. The new solution is parametrized by the scalar charge and the Born-Infeld coupling constant apart from the mass and spin o…
We study here images of thin accretion disks around black holes and two classes of naked singularity spacetimes and compare these scenarios. The naked singularity models which have photon spheres have single accretion disk with its inner edge lying outside the photon sphere. The images and shadows created by these models mimic those of black holes. It follows, therefore, that further and more detailed analysis of the images and shadows structure in such case is needed to confirm or otherwise the existence of an event horizon for the compact objects such as the galactic centers. However, naked …
We analytically calculate the influence of a plasma on the shadow of a black hole (or of another compact object). We restrict to spherically symmetric and static situations, where the shadow is circular. The plasma is assumed to be non-magnetized and pressure-less. We derive the general formulas for a spherically symmetric plasma density on an unspecified spherically symmetric and static spacetime. The formalism applies not only to black holes but also, e.g., to wormholes. As examples for the underlying spacetime model, we consider the Schwarzschild spacetime and the Ellis wormhole. In particu…
We examine the possibility for the existence of gravitomagnetic monopole ($n_*$) in M87* by using the results obtained from its first Event Horizon Telescope image. By numerically deducing the shadow sizes in Kerr-Taub-NUT (KTN) spacetime, we show that the shadow size increases with increasing $|n_*|$ for a fixed Kerr parameter $|a_*|$ in case of the KTN black hole, whereas for a KTN naked singularity it increases with increasing $n_*$ for a fixed $a_* > 0$ if $n_* > -\cot 17^{\circ}$ . In general, the asymmetry of shadow shape increases if the central dark object in M87 is a KTN/Kerr naked si…
We explore a simple spherical model of optically thin accretion on a Schwarzschild black hole, and study the properties of the image as seen by a distant observer. We show that a dark circular region in the center --- a shadow --- is always present. The outer edge of the shadow is located at the photon ring radius $b_{\rm ph} \equiv \sqrt{27}r_g$, where $r_g=GM/c^2$ is the gravitational radius of the accreting mass $M$. The location of the shadow edge is independent of the inner radius at which the accreting gas stops radiating. The size of the observed shadow is thus a signature of the spacet…
We investigate static and spherically symmetric solutions in a gravity theory that extends the standard Hilbert-Einstein action with a Lagrangian constructed from a three-form field $A_{αβγ}$, which is related to the field strength and a potential term. The field equations are derived from a variational principle and are obtained explicitly for a static and spherically symmetric geometry in vacuum. For the case of the vanishing three-form field potential the gravitational field equations can be solved exactly. However, for arbitrary potentials, due to their mathematical complexity, numerical a…
Adopting the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff formalism, we propose a new analytical solution for a static and spherically symmetric black hole where the cosmological constant is generalized to a non-isotropic Anton-Schmidt fluid acting as a unified dark energy - dark matter source. Our novel result can describe a black hole in energetic equilibrium with the surrounding universe. We thus investigate the interplay between the mass of the black hole and the parameters of the Anton-Schmidt equation of state, and physically interpret the solution as a family of space-time metrics that may describe both …
The final fate of gravitational collapse of massive stars has been a subject of interest for a long time since such a collapse may lead to black holes and naked singularities alike. Since, the formation of naked singularities is forbidden by the cosmic censorship conjecture, exploring their observational differences from black holes may be a possible avenue to search for these exotic objects. The simplest possible naked singularity spacetime emerges from the Einstein massless scalar field theory with the advantage that it smoothly translates to the Schwarzschild solution by the variation of th…
We construct perfect fluid tori in the field of the Kehagias-Sfetsos (K-S) naked singularity representing spherically symmetric vacuum solution of the modified Hořava quantum gravity that is characterized by a dimensionless parameter $ωM^2$, combining the gravitational mass parameter $M$ of the spacetime with the Hořava parameter $ω$ reflecting the role of the quantum corrections. In dependence on the value of $ωM^2$, the K-S naked singularities demonstrate a variety of qualitatively different behavior of their circular geodesics that is fully reflected in the properties of the toroidal struct…
For a wide class of spherically symmetric naked singularities there is a sphere within which gravity is effectively repulsive. In such spacetimes accreting matter cannot reach the singularity and will instead form a levitating atmosphere, which is kept suspended by gravity alone. The density of the atmosphere has a maximum at a definite radius. In its qualitative properties the atmosphere is analogous to the recently discussed atmospheres that are supported by radiation pressure above luminous neutron stars, however for the levitating atmospheres around a naked singularity no radiation need be…
A black hole casts a shadow as an optical appearance because of its strong gravitational field. We study how to determine the spin parameter and the inclination angle by observing the apparent shape of the shadow, which is distorted mainly by those two parameters. Defining some observables characterizing the apparent shape (its radius and distortion parameter), we find that the spin parameter and inclination angle of a Kerr black hole can be determined by the observation. This technique is also extended to the case of a Kerr naked singularity.
A black hole casts a shadow as an optical appearance because of its strong gravitational field. We study the shadow cast by the five-dimensional Myers-Perry black hole with equal rotation parameters. We demonstrate that the null geodesic equations can be integrated that allows us to investigate the shadow cast by a black hole. The shadow of a black hole is found to be a dark zone covered by deformed circle. Interestingly, the shapes of the black hole shadow are more distorted and size decreases for larger black hole spins. Interestingly, it turns out that, for fixed values of rotation paramete…
We construct a novel class of spherically symmetric and asymptotically flat black holes and naked singularities surrounded by anisotropic dark matter fluid with the equation of state (EoS) of the form $P_t=ωρ$. We assume that dark matter is made of weakly interacting particles orbiting around the supermassive black hole in the galactic center and the dark matter halo is formed by means of Einstein clusters having only tangential pressure. In the large distance from the black hole, we obtain the constant flat curve with the upper bound for the dark matter state parameter $ω\lesssim 10^{-7}$. To…
The brane world description of our universe entails a large extra dimension and a fundamental scale of gravity that may be lower than the Planck scale by several orders of magnitude. An interesting consequence of this scenario occurs in the nature of spherically-symmetric vacuum solutions to the brane gravitational field equations, which often have properties quite distinct from the standard black hole solutions of general relativity. In this paper, the spherically-symmetric collapse on the brane world of four types of null fluid, governed by the barotropic, polytropic, strange quark "bag" mod…
We formulate a generic Newtonian like analogous potential for static spherically symmetric general relativistic (GR) spacetime, and subsequently derived proper Newtonian like analogous potential corresponding to Janis-Newman-Winicour (JNW) and Reissner-Nordström (RN) spacetimes, both exhibiting naked singularities. The derived potentials found to reproduce the entire GR features including the orbital dynamics of the test particle motion and the orbital trajectories, with precise accuracy. The nature of the particle orbital dynamics including their trajectory profiles in JNW and RN geometries s…
The shadows cast by non-rotating and rotating modified gravity (MOG) black holes are determined by the two parameters mass $M$ and angular momentum $J=Ma$. The sizes of the shadows cast by the spherically symmetric static Schwarzschild-MOG and Kerr-MOG rotating black holes increase significantly as the free parameter $α$ is increased from zero. The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) shadow image measurements can determine whether Einstein's general relativity is correct or whether it should be modified in the presence of strong gravitational fields.
We generalize here our earlier results on particle acceleration by naked singularities. We showed recently[1] that the naked singularities that form due to gravitational collapse of massive stars provide a suitable environment where particles could get accelerated and collide at arbitrarily high center of mass energies. However, we focussed there only on the spherically symmetric gravitational collapse models, which were also assumed to be self-similar. In this paper, we broaden and generalize the result to all gravitational collapse models leading to the formation of a naked singularity as fi…
We study bound orbits near the centres of static, spherically symmetric, asymptotically flat configurations of a self-gravitating scalar field minimally coupled to gravity. In our approach, a nonlinear scalar field is considered as an idealized model of dark matter, and the main examples that we have in mind are the centres of galaxies. We consider both scalar field black holes (SFBHs) and scalar field naked singularities (SFNSs). It turns out that the shape and parameters of a bound orbit depend crucially on the type of configuration. The lapse metric function of a SFNS and, consequently, the…
We demonstrate possible optical signatures of the Kehagias-Sfetsos naked singularity spacetimes representing spherically symmetric vacuum solution of the modified Hořava gravity. In such spacetimes, accretion structures significantly different from those present in the standard black hole spacetimes occur due to the "antigravity" effect causing existence of an internal static sphere surrounded by Keplerian discs. We focus our attention on the optical effects related to the Keplerian accretion discs, constructing the optical appearance of the Keplerian discs, the spectral continuum due to their…
