Related papers: Light Loop Echoes and Blinking Black Holes
The geometry of black hole spacetimes can be probed with exquisite precision in the gravitational-wave window, and possibly also in the optical regime. We study the accretion of bright spots -- objects which emit strongly in the optical or…
Light passing near a black hole can follow multiple paths from an emission source to an observer due to strong gravitational lensing. Photons following different paths take different amounts of time to reach the observer, which produces an…
The presence of a bright "photon ring" surrounding a dark "black hole shadow" has been discussed as an important feature of the observational appearance of emission originating near a black hole. We clarify the meaning and relevance of…
We model the light-curves from radiation-driven clouds near an accreting black hole. Taking into account the multiple images due to strong gravitational lensing, we find that sharp spikes can significantly enhance the observed flux.…
Black holes are capable of reflection: there is a finite probability for any particle that approaches the event horizon to bounce back. The albedo of the black hole depends on its temperature and the energy of the incoming particle. The…
Black holes cannot be seen directly since they absorb light and emit none, the very quality which earned them their name. We suggest that black holes may be seen indirectly through a chaotic defocusing of light. A black hole can capture…
Gravitational lensing near a black hole is strong enough that light rays can circle the event horizon multiple times. Photons emitted in multiple directions at a single event, perhaps because of localized, impulsive heating of accreting…
A distinct visual signature occurs in black holes that are surrounded by optically thin and geometrically thick emission regions. This signature is a sharp-edged dip in brightness that is coincident with the black-hole shadow, which is the…
The electromagnetic signature of a point explosion near a Kerr black hole (BH) is evaluated. The first repetitions produced by gravitational lensing are not periodic in time; periodicity emerges only as the result of multiple circuits of…
The quantum corrections make the black hole capable of reflection: any particle that approaches the event horizon can bounce back in the outside world. The albedo of the black hole depends on its temperature. The reflection shares physical…
The Event Horizon Telescope recently produced the first images of a black hole. These images were synthesized by measuring the coherent correlation function of the complex electric field measured at telescopes located across the Earth. This…
We consider a rapidly spinning black hole surrounded by an equatorial, geometrically thin, slowly accreting disk that is stationary and axisymmetric. We analytically compute the broadening of electromagnetic line emissions from the…
The silhouette of a black hole having a critical curve (an unstable bound photon orbit) when illuminated by an optically thin accretion disk whose emission is confined to the equatorial plane shows a distinctive central brightness…
We propose an eclipsing light-curve diagnosis for black-hole accretion flows. When emission from an inner accretion disk around a black hole is occulted by a companion star, the observed light curve becomes asymmetric at ingress and egress…
Images of supermassive black holes produced using very long baseline interferometry provide a pathway to directly observing effects of a highly curved spacetime, such as a bright ``photon ring'' that arises from strongly lensed emission. In…
Shine a flashlight on a black hole, and one is greeted with the return of a series of concentric rings of light. For a point source of light, and for perfect alignment of the lens, source, and observer, the rings are of infinite brightness…
We propose that high frequency quasi-periodic oscillations (HFQPOs) can be produced from randomly-formed X-ray bursts (flashes) by plasma interior to the ergosphere of a rapidly-rotating black hole. We show by direct computation of their…
Black holes are presumed to have an ideal ability to absorb and keep matter. Whatever comes close to the event horizon, a boundary separating the inside region of a black hole from the outside world, inevitably goes in and remains inside…
A particle scattered off by a rotating black hole can be amplified when the system is in the superradiant regime. If the system is surrounded by a mirror which reflects the particle back to the black hole the whole system forms a black-hole…
A simple, analytical fitting-formula for a photometric light curve of a source of light orbiting around a black hole is presented. The formula is applicable for sources on a circular orbit with radius smaller than 45 gravitational radii…