Photon sphere

About: Photon sphere is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 730 publications have been published within this topic receiving 17629 citations.

First M87 Event Horizon Telescope Results. I. The Shadow of the Supermassive Black Hole

Abstract: When surrounded by a transparent emission region, black holes are expected to reveal a dark shadow caused by gravitational light bending and photon capture at the event horizon. To image and study this phenomenon, we have assembled the Event Horizon Telescope, a global very long baseline interferometry array observing at a wavelength of 1.3 mm. This allows us to reconstruct event-horizon-scale images of the supermassive black hole candidate in the center of the giant elliptical galaxy M87. We have resolved the central compact radio source as an asymmetric bright emission ring with a diameter of 42 +/- 3 mu as, which is circular and encompasses a central depression in brightness with a flux ratio greater than or similar to 10: 1. The emission ring is recovered using different calibration and imaging schemes, with its diameter and width remaining stable over four different observations carried out in different days. Overall, the observed image is consistent with expectations for the shadow of a Kerr black hole as predicted by general relativity. The asymmetry in brightness in the ring can be explained in terms of relativistic beaming of the emission from a plasma rotating close to the speed of light around a black hole. We compare our images to an extensive library of ray-traced general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations of black holes and derive a central mass of M = (6.5 +/- 0.7) x 10(9) M-circle dot. Our radio-wave observations thus provide powerful evidence for the presence of supermassive black holes in centers of galaxies and as the central engines of active galactic nuclei. They also present a new tool to explore gravity in its most extreme limit and on a mass scale that was so far not accessible.

Gravitational lensing by naked singularities

Abstract: We model massive dark objects in galactic nuclei as spherically symmetric static naked singularities in the Einstein massless scalar field theory and study the resulting gravitational lensing in detail. Based on whether or not a naked singularity is covered within a photon sphere we classify naked singularities into two kinds: weakly naked (those contained within at least one photon sphere) and strongly naked (those not contained within any photon sphere). The qualitative features of gravitational lensing due to a weakly naked singularity are similar to those due to a Schwarzschild black hole (these give rise to one Einstein ring but no radial critical curve). However, the gravitational lensing due to a strongly naked singularity is qualitatively different from that due to a Schwarzschild black hole; a strongly naked singularity gives rise to either two or nil Einstein ring(s) and one radial critical curve. A light ray passing close to a photon sphere of a black hole or a weakly naked singularity goes around its photon sphere once, twice, or many times (before reaching an observer) depending upon the impact parameter and thus gives rise to a sequence of theoretically infinite number of relativistic images, which are highly demagnified. A strongly naked singularity produces no relativistic images.

The quasi-normal modes of the Schwarzschild black hole

Abstract: The quasi-normal modes of a black hole represent solutions of the relevant perturbation equations which satisfy the boundary conditions appropriate for purely outgoing (gravitational) waves at infinity and purely ingoing waves at the horizon. For the Schwarzschild black hole the problem reduces to one of finding such solutions for a one-dimensional wave equation (Zerilli's equation) for a potential which is positive everywhere and is of short-range. The notion of quasi-normal modes of such one-dimensional potential barriers is examined with two illustrative examples; and numerical solutions for Zerilli's potential are obtained by integrating the associated Riccati equation.

Gravitational-wave signatures of exotic compact objects and of quantum corrections at the horizon scale

Abstract: Gravitational waves from binary coalescences provide one of the cleanest signatures of the nature of compact objects. It has been recently argued that the postmerger ringdown waveform of exotic ultracompact objects is initially identical to that of a black hole, and that putative corrections at the horizon scale will appear as secondary pulses after the main burst of radiation. Here we extend this analysis in three important directions: (i) we show that this result applies to a large class of exotic compact objects with a photon sphere for generic orbits in the test-particle limit; (ii) we investigate the late-time ringdown in more detail, showing that it is universally characterized by a modulated and distorted train of ``echoes''of the modes of vibration associated with the photon sphere; (iii) we study for the first time equal-mass, head-on collisions of two ultracompact boson stars and compare their gravitational-wave signal to that produced by a pair of black holes. If the initial objects are compact enough as to mimic a binary black-hole collision up to the merger, the final object exceeds the maximum mass for boson stars and collapses to a black hole. This suggests that---in some configurations---the coalescence of compact boson stars might be almost indistinguishable from that of black holes. On the other hand, generic configurations display peculiar signatures that can be searched for in gravitational-wave data as smoking guns of exotic compact objects.

Reality of the Schwarzschild Singularity

Abstract: A spherically symmetric solution of the Einstein equations is presented that coincides with the exterior ($\mathcal{r}g2m$) Schwarzschild solution, but where the Schwarzschild "sphere" becomes a point singularity. The possible relevance of this solution to the question of gravitational collapse is discussed.