Since the full General Theory of Relativity has been unveiled to the scientific community in 1915, many solutions to the vacuum Einstein field equations have been found and studied. This paper aims at documenting exhaustively the derivation of the shape of the patch of the sky that is left completely black by a spinning black hole described by the Kerr solutions in Boyer-Lindquist coordinates. This dark zone in the observer's sky is called the black hole shadow. Conserved quantities which allow for the analysis of particle orbits are first introduced, with the help of which the trajectories of photons are uniquely described by two impact parameters (Specific angular momentum in the azimuthal direction L and dimensionless Carter's constant Q). We then derive the conditions on those parameters required for a photon to be captured by the black hole. These conditions are then translated into an equation for the black hole shadow. We conclude the paper by drawing out the black hole shadows for an equatorial observer for two separate cases.
We find that the Kerr-(Newman)-AdS$_4$ black hole will be shadowless if its rotation parameter is larger than a critical value and the shadowless-ness may be related to the appearance of the null hypersurface caustics (NHC) both inside the Cauchy horizon and outside the event horizon for the black hole with the rotation parameter beyond the critical value. Our studies also further confirm that whether an ultraspinning black hole is super-entropic or not is unrelated to the existence of the NHC outside the event horizon.
In this work, taking the QED effect into account, we investigate the shadows of the Kerr black holes immersed in uniform magnetic fields through the numerical backward ray-tracing method. We introduce a dimensionless parameter $Λ$ to characterize the strength of magnetic fields and studied the influence of magnetic fields on the Kerr black hole shadows for various spins of the black holes and inclination angles of the observers. In particular, we find that the photon "hairs" appear near the left edge of the shadow in the presence of magnetic fields. The photon hairs may be served as a signatur…
From the viewpoint of differential geometry and topology, we investigate the characterization of the shadows in a Kerr spacetime. Two new quantities, the length of the shadow boundary and the local curvature radius are introduced. Each shadow can be uniquely determined by these two quantities. For the black hole case, the result shows that we can constrain the black hole spin and the angular coordinate of the observer only by measuring the maximum and minimum of the curvature radius. While for the naked singularity case, we adopt the length parameter and the maximum of the curvature radius. Th…
For an observer, the Black Hole (BH) shadow is the BH's apparent image in the sky due to the gravitational lensing of nearby radiation, emitted by an external source. A recent class of solutions dubbed Kerr BHs with scalar hair possess smaller shadows than the corresponding Kerr BHs and, under some conditions, novel exotic shadow shapes can arise. Thus, these hairy BHs could potentially provide new shadow templates for future experiments such as the Event Horizon Telescope. In order to obtain the shadows, the backward ray-tracing algorithm is briefly introduced, followed by numerical examples …
We consider applications of the curvature radius of a Kerr black hole shadow and propose three new approaches to simultaneously determine the black hole spin and inclination angle of the observer. The first one uses only two symmetric characteristic points, i.e., the top and the bottom points of the shadow, and is the smallest amount of data employed to extract information about spin and inclination angle amongst all current treatments. The second approach shows that only measuring the curvature radius at the characteristic points can also yield the black hole spin and the inclination angle. T…
We obtain an exact Kerr-like black hole solution by solving the corresponding gravitational field equations in Einstein-bumblebee gravity model where Lorentz symmetry is spontaneously broken once a vector field acquires a vacuum expectation value. Results are presented for the purely radial Lorentz symmetry breaking. In order to study the effects of this breaking, we consider the black hole shadow and find that the radial of the unstable spherical orbit on the equatorial plane $r_c$ decreases with the Lorentz breaking constant $\ell>0$, and increases with $\ell<0$. These shifts are similar to …
In the Einstein-bumblebee gravity, the Lorentz symmetry is spontaneously broken by a vector field. In this paper, we attempt to test the Lorentz symmetry via the observation of the shadow cast by the Kerr-like black hole with or without plasma. A novel phenomenon of the Lorentz-violating parameter on the shadow is observed. The result shows that when the observer gradually moves from the poles to the equatorial plane, the shadow radius $R_{\rm s}$ firstly decreases and then increases with the Lorentz-violating parameter. Such nonmonotonic behavior provides us an important understanding on the …
Lorentz-Violating (LV) scenario gets involved through a bumblebee field vector field $B_μ$. A spontaneous symmetry breaking allows the field to acquires a vacuum expectation value that generates LV into the system. A Kerr-Sen-like solution has been found out starting from the generalized form of a radiating stationery axially symmetric black-hole metric. We compute the effective potential offered by the null geodesics in the bumblebee rotating black-hole spacetime. The shadow has been sketched for different variations of the parameters involved in the system. A careful investigation has been c…
In this paper, the shadows cast by non-rotating and rotating modified gravity black holes are investigated. In addition to the black hole spin parameter $a$ and the inclination angle $θ$ of observer, another parameter $α$ measuring the deviation of gravitational constant from the Newton one is also found to affect the shape of the black hole shadow. The result shows that, for fixed values of $a/M$ and $θ$, the size and perimeter of the shadows cast by the non-rotating and rotating black holes significantly increase with the parameter $α$, while the distortions decrease with $α$. Moreover, the …
Using backwards ray tracing, we study the shadows of Kerr black holes with scalar hair (KBHsSH). KBHsSH interpolate continuously between Kerr BHs and boson stars (BSs), so we start by investigating the lensing of light due to BSs. Moving from the weak to the strong gravity region, BSs - which by themselves have no shadows - are classified, according to the lensing produced, as: $(i)$ non-compact, which yield no multiple images; $(ii)$ compact, which produce an increasing number of Einstein rings and multiple images of the whole celestial sphere; $(iii)$ ultra-compact, which possess light rings…
The correspondence between the shadow radius and the quasi-normal modes of the Kerr-Sen black hole is studied. By using the equation of the shadow radius of the Kerr-Sen black hole and the angular separation constant of the quasi-normal modes, the expression of the real part of quasi-normal modes related to the shadow radius is obtained. We found that in the eikonal limit, our formula coincides with the previous result. Moreover, we also calculate the energy emission rate of the Kerr-Sen black hole, it turns out that the peak energy emissivity is inversely correlated with the charge parameter.
Within 5-10 years, submillimeter VLBI facilities will be hopefully able to image the "shadow" of SgrA$^*$. When a black hole is surrounded by an optically thin emitting medium, the boundary of the shadow corresponds to the apparent photon capture sphere and only depends on the background metric. An accurate determination of the shape of the shadow of SgrA$^*$ could constrain possible deviations from the Kerr solution. In combination with other measurements, these observations could test the Kerr black hole paradigm.
The recently obtained hairy Kerr black holes, due to additional sources or surrounding fluid, like dark matter, with conserved energy-momentum tensor, have a deviation $α$ and primary hair $l_0$, apart from rotation parameter $a$ and mass $M$. In the wake of the \textit{Event Horizon Telescope} (\textit{EHT}) observations of the supermassive black hole M87*, a recent surge in interest in black hole shadows suggests comparing the black holes in general relativity (GR) and modified theories of gravity (MoG) to assess these models' differences. Motivated by this, we take on an extensive study of …
Investigations of shadows of astrophysical entities constitute a major source of insight into the evolution of compact objects. Such effects depend on the nature of the compact object and arise on account of the strong gravitational lensing that casts a shadow on the bright background. We consider the Kerr-like wormhole spacetime (Phys.\ Rev.\ D 97:024040, 2018), which is a modification of the Kerr black hole that degenerates into wormholes for nonzero values of the deviation parameter $λ^2$. The results suggest that the Kerr spacetime can reproduce far away from the throat of the wormhole. We…
We explore the shadow of certain class generalized Kerr black holes, which are non vacuum solutions of the Einstein equations with exotic matter. The images depend on the angular momentum of the compact object, the characteristic parameter $l$ of the model, and the inclination angle of the observer. The results are compared with the case of the Kerr black hole and the Kerr naked singularity.
We revisit to investigate shadows cast by Kerr-like wormholes. The boundary of the shadow is determined by unstable circular photon orbits. We find that, in certain parameter regions, the orbit is located at the throat of the Kerr-like wormhole, which was not considered in the literature. In these cases, the existence of the throat alters the shape of the shadow significantly, and makes it possible for us to differentiate it from that of a Kerr black hole.
We have investigated the shadow of a Konoplya-Zhidenko rotating non-Kerr black hole with an extra deformation parameter. The spacetime structure arising from the deformed parameter affects sharply the black hole shadow. With the increase of the deformation parameter, the size of the shadow of black hole increase and its shape becomes more rounded for arbitrary rotation parameter. The D-shape shadow of black hole emerges only in the case $a<\frac{2\sqrt{3}}{3}M$ with the proper deformation parameter. Especially, the black hole shadow possesses a cusp shape with small eye lashes in the cases wit…
We perform the shadow calculation of the loop quantum gravity motivated regular black hole recently proposed by Ashtekar, Olmedo and Singh (will be termed AOS black hole hereafter). In the process, we also construct the rotating loop quantum gravity inspired solution of the originally proposed static spherically symmetric AOS black hole by applying the modified Newman-Janis algorithm. We study the quantum effects on the shadows of both the non-rotating and rotating loop quantum black hole solutions. It is observed that the general shape of the shadow for non-rotating AOS black hole is circular…
We have studied the shadow of a disformal Kerr black hole with an extra deformation parameter, which belongs to non-stealth rotating solutions in quadratic Degenerate Higher Order Scalar Tensor (DHOST) theory. Our result show that the size of the shadow increases with the deformation parameter for the black hole with arbitrary spin parameter. However, the effect of the deformation parameter on the shadow shape depends heavily on the spin parameter of black hole and the sign of the deformation parameter. The change of the shadow shape becomes more distinct for the black hole with the more quick…
We analyze the shadow of charged stationary axially symmetric space-time (Kerr-Sen dilaton-axion black hole). This black hole is defined by a mass $M$, a spin $a$ and $r_α=Q^{2}/M$, where $Q$ is the electric charge. Shadows are investigated in two conditions, i) for an observer at infinity in vacuum and ii) for an observer at infinity in the presence of plasma with radial power-low density. In vacuum, the shadow of this black hole depends on charge and spin parameter. We can see that, increasing electric charge, $Q$ decreases the size of shadow. Also, increasing spin parameter $a$ decreases th…
The recent observation of the shadow of the supermassive compact object M87$^*$ by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration has opened up a new window to probe the strong gravity regime. In this paper, we study shadows cast by two viable alternatives to the Kerr black hole, and compare them with the shadow of M87$^{*}$. The first alternative is a horizonless compact object (HCO) having radius $r_0$ and exterior Kerr geometry. The second one is a rotating generalisation of the recently obtained one parameter ($r_0$) static metric by Simpson and Visser. This latter metric, constructed by …
The Event Horizon Telescope collaboration has revealed the first direct image of a black hole, as per the shadow of a Kerr black hole of general relativity. However, other Kerr-like rotating black holes of modified gravity theories cannot be ignored, and they are essential as they offer an arena in which these theories can be tested through astrophysical observation. This motivates us to investigate asymptotically de Sitter rotating black holes wherein interpreting the cosmological constant $Λ$ as the vacuum energy leads to a deformation in the vicinity of a black hole -- new Kerr--de Sitter s…
We study the shadow cast or silhouette generated by a Kerr-Newman-Kasuya (KNK) spacetime (rotating dyon black hole). It is shown that in addition to the angular momentum of the black hole, the dyon charge also affects the shadow image of the KNK black hole. Moreover, we analyze the weak gravitational lensing by the KNK black hole by using the Gauss-Bonnet theorem. Finally, we find that extra dyon charge decreases both the deflection angle and shadow of the KNK black hole.
It is now known that the shadow is not only the property of a black hole, it can also be cast by other compact objects like naked singularities. However, there exist some novel features of the shadow of the naked singularities which are elaborately discussed in some recent articles. In the earlier literature, it is also shown that a naked singularity may admit negative precession of bound timelike orbits which cannot be seen in Schwarzschild and Kerr black hole spacetimes. This distinguishable behavior of timelike bound orbit in the presence of the naked singularity along with the novel featur…
The shadow of a black hole can be one of the strong observational evidences for stationary black holes. If we see shadows at the center of galaxies, we would say whether the observed compact objects are black holes. In this paper, we consider a formula for the contour of a shadow in an asymptotically-flat, stationary, and axisymmetric black hole spacetime. We show that the formula is useful for obtaining the contour of the shadow of several black holes such as the Kerr-Newman black hole and rotating regular black holes. Using the formula, we can obtain new examples of the contour of the shadow…
This work is geared towards analysis of shadows cast by Kerr-de Sitter (KdS) and Kerr-de Sitter Revisited (RKdS) black holes. Considering observers in the vicinity of the static radius, we derive the impact parameters defining the apparent positions of the shadows. Such observers are of interest to our work because embedding diagrams have shown that de Sitter space-time is analogous to an asymptotically flat one in the vicinity of the static radius. We also perform a comparative analysis between our result with that in Ref.[1]. Furthermore, we numerically obtain the radii of curvature, vertica…
We have studied the spacetime of a Kerr black hole immersed in Melvin magnetic field, and found not only unstable light rings could exist, but also stable light rings could exist. Both the prograde and retrograde unstable light rings radiuses increase with the magnetic field parameter $B$, but it is the opposite for stable light rings. The existence of unstable, stable light rings depend on both the rotation parameter $a$ and the magnetic field parameter $B$. For a certain $a$, there are both the prograde and retroprade unstable (stable) light rings when $B$ is less than a critical value $B_{c…
In this paper we have took reissner nordstrom blackhole with cloud of strings and surrounds it with quintessence. we processed the metric through newman janis algorithm to get its rotating counterpart. the blackhole in study now is a roating charged blackhole with clouds of string surrounded by quintessence. we studied its nature of effective potential and unstable photon orbits. Finally we have plotted the blackhole shadow for various variable profiles.
Photon rings and shadows of Kerr black holes immersed in a swirling universe
Instituto de Física de São Carlos, Universidade de São Paulo（圣卡洛斯物理研究所，圣保罗大学）；Institut für Physik, Carl-von-Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg（奥尔登堡卡尔·冯·奥西茨基大学物理研究所）；Department of Mathematics, University College London（伦敦大学学院数学系）；Departamento de Matemática da Universidade de Aveiro and Center for Research and Development in Mathematics and Applications (CIDMA)（阿威罗大学数学系及数学与应用研发中心）
The M87* black hole shadow observation by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) has enabled us to test the modified gravity theories in the extreme-field regime and estimating the black hole parameters. Having this assertion, we investigate the Kerr-like rotating black holes in $4D$ Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet (EGB) gravity and deduce their shadows. Considering the inclination angle $θ_0=17^o$, we show that the EGB black hole shadows are smaller and more distorted than for the Kerr black holes. Modelling the M87* black hole as the EGB black hole, we predict the shadow angular size $35.7888μas\leq θ_d\le…
We study the absorption of plane waves by Kerr black holes. We calculate the absorption cross section: the area of the black hole shadow at a finite wavelength. We present a unified picture of the absorption of all massless bosonic fields, focussing on the on-axis incidence case. We investigate the spin-helicity effect, arising from a coupling between dragging of frames and the helicity of a polarized wave. We introduce and calibrate an extended sinc approximation which provides new quantitative data on the spin-helicity effect in strong-field gravity.
Motivated by inclination of the Earth's orbit that is not located at galactic plane for observing the shadow of Sgr A*, we consider the black hole shadow for arbitrary inclinations and different velocities of observers. A surprising finding of the study is that rotation axis of a black hole might not be extracted from its shadow, since the ways of the shadow getting distorted depend not only on the spin of the black hole, but also velocities of observers. Namely, appearance of the shadow could be rotated by an angle in observers' celestial sphere due to the observer in motion. In order to furt…
We consider the Plebański class of electrovacuum solutions to the Einstein equations with a cosmological constant. These space-times, which are also known as the Kerr-Newman-NUT-(anti-)de Sitter space-times, are characterized by a mass $m$, a spin $a$, a parameter $β$ that comprises electric and magnetic charge, a NUT parameter $\ell$ and a cosmological constant $Λ$. Based on a detailed discussion of the photon regions in these space-times (i.e., of the regions in which spherical lightlike geodesics exist), we derive an analytical formula for the shadow of a Kerr-Newman-NUT-(anti-)de Sitter bl…
We present firstly the equation of motion for the photon coupled to a special bumblebee vector field in a Kerr black hole spacetime and find that the propagation of light depends on its polarization due to the birefringence phenomenon. The dependence of black hole shadow on the light's polarization is dominated by the rotation of black hole. In the non-rotating case, we find that the black hole shadow is independent of the polarization of light. However, the status is changed in the rotating case, in which the black hole shadow depends on the light's polarization and the coupling between bumbl…
We study the shadow of the Cardoso-Pani-Rico (CPR) black hole for different values of the black hole spin $a_*$, the deformation parameters $ε_3^t$ and $ε_3^r$, and the viewing angle $i$. We find that the main impact of the deformation parameter $ε_3^t$ is the change of the size of the shadow, while the deformation parameter $ε_3^r$ affects the shape of its boundary. In general, it is impossible to test the Kerr metric, because the shadow of a Kerr black hole can be reproduced quite well by a black hole with non-vanishing $ε_3^t$ or $ε_3^r$. Deviations from the Kerr geometry could be constrain…
We investigate the gravitational lensing by spinning Proca stars and the shadows and lensing by Kerr black holes (BHs) with synchronised Proca hair, discussing both theoretical aspects and observational constraints from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) M87* and Sgr A* data. On the theoretical side, this family of BHs interpolates between Kerr-like solutions -- exhibiting a similar optical appearance to that of Kerr BHs -- to very non-Kerr like solutions, exhibiting exotic features such as cuspy shadows, egg-like shadows and ghost shadows. We interpret these features in terms of the structure …
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.
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is taking the first images of black holes resolved at horizon scales to measure their shadows and probe accretion physics. A promising avenue for testing the hypothesis that astrophysical black holes are described by the Kerr solution to Einstein's equations is to compare the size and shape of the shadow a black hole casts on the surrounding emission to the predictions of the Kerr metric. We develop here an efficient parametric framework to perform this test. We carry out ray-tracing simulations for several parametrized non-Kerr metrics to create a large data …
We consider light propagation in a non-magnetized pressureless plasma around a Kerr black hole. We find the necessary and sufficient condition the plasma electron density has to satisfy to guarantee that the Hamilton-Jacobi equation for the light rays is separable, i.e., that a generalized Carter constant exists. For all cases where this condition is satisfied we determine the photon region, i.e., the region in the spacetime where spherical light rays exist. A spherical light ray is a light ray that stays on a sphere $r = \mathrm{constant}$ (in Boyer-Lindquist coordinates). Based on these resu…
In this article, we conduct a sequential study of possible observable images of black hole simulators described by two recently obtained rotating geometries in Einstein gravity, minimally coupled to a scalar field. One of them, "Kerr-like" (KL), can be seen as a legitimate alternative to the rotating Fisher-Janis-Newman-Winicour (FJNW) solution, and the other (TSL) is a scalar generalization of the Tomimatsu-Sato solution. Unlike the previous version of the rotating FJNW, these solutions do indeed satisfy the system's equations of motion. Our study includes both analytical and numerical calcul…
We have studied numerically the shadows of a non-Kerr rotating compact object with quadrupole mass moment, which belongs to Manko-Novikov family. The non-integrable photon motion caused by quadrupole mass moment affects sharply the shadow of the compact object. As the deviation parameter related to quadrupole mass moment is negative, the shadow of compact object is prolate and there are two disconnected main shadows with eyebrows located symmetrically on both sides of the equatorial plane. As the deviation parameter is positive, the shadow becomes oblate and the main shadow is joined together …
