English

Observational signatures of wormholes with thin accretion disks

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2020-04-15 v2 High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

We numerically construct images of thin accretion disks in rotating wormhole backgrounds, for the Kerr-like and the Teo class of wormholes. Our construction is illustrated by two methods, a semi-analytic scheme where separated null geodesic equations obtained by analytically integrating the second order equations once are used, as well as by a numerical ray-tracing method utilizing a fourth order Runge-Kutta algorithm. Our result shows dramatic differences between accretion disk images in wormhole backgrounds, compared to black hole ones, specifically because a wormhole can in principle have accretion disks on both sides of its throat. We establish the nature of the images if the observer and the disk are on two opposite sides of the throat, and show that these can provide conclusive observational evidence of wormhole geometries.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1911.05525,
  title  = {Observational signatures of wormholes with thin accretion disks},
  author = {Suvankar Paul and Rajibul Shaikh and Pritam Banerjee and Tapobrata Sarkar},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1911.05525},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

24 pages, 4 figures, new references added