Optical Appearance of a Rotating Black Hole in Nonlinear Electrodynamics Surrounded by Thin Accretion Disks
Abstract
This work investigates the optical appearance of a rotating black hole (BH) in nonlinear electrodynamics (NED) using two illumination models, namely a celestial sphere and a thin accretion disk. The BH images are constructed using a backward ray-tracing method together with a fisheye camera model. We examine the effects of the electric charge and the NED parameter on the event horizon, shadow, photon ring, and optical appearance for both prograde and retrograde accretion flows. The results indicate that an increase in leads to a larger shadow radius with reduced distortion, whereas increasing decreases the shadow size and enhances its deformation. These features are further quantified through the shadow radius and distortion parameter. We also analyze the direct and lensed images of the thin accretion disk, together with their corresponding redshift distributions and emission bands. The redshifted emission is found to dominate the observed images, while the blueshifted region is confined to the vicinity of the photon ring. Our results demonstrate that both and leave distinct signatures on the optical appearance of rotating NED BHs, providing useful insights for future high-resolution observations.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2607.23093,
title = {Optical Appearance of a Rotating Black Hole in Nonlinear Electrodynamics Surrounded by Thin Accretion Disks},
author = {Abdul Malik Sultan and Manahil Ali and Muhammad Israr Aslam and Zi-Chao Lin},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.23093},
year = {2026}
}