Related papers: Testing black hole candidates with electromagnetic…
In general, it is very difficult to test the Kerr-nature of an astrophysical black hole candidate, because it is not possible to have independent measurements of both the spin parameter $a_*$ and possible deviations from the Kerr solution.…
We present the first X-ray reflection model for testing the assumption that the metric of astrophysical black holes is described by the Kerr solution. We employ the formalism of the transfer function proposed by Cunningham. The calculations…
The past 10 years have seen tremendous progress in our capability of testing General Relativity in the strong field regime with black hole observations. 10 years ago, the theory of General Relativity was almost completely unexplored in the…
Kerr black holes are among the most intriguing predictions of Einstein's general relativity theory. These rotating massive astrophysical objects drag and intermix their surrounding space and time, deflecting and phase-modifying light…
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…
On the basis of the Carter-Israel conjecture, today we believe that some compact and massive objects in the Galaxy and in the Universe are Kerr black holes. However, this idea cannot yet be confirmed by observations. We can currently obtain…
General relativity predicts that black hole images ought to display a bright, thin (and as-of-yet-unresolved) ring. This "photon ring" is produced by photons that explore the strong gravity of the black hole, flowing along trajectories that…
Black holes are among the most extreme objects that can be found in the Universe and an ideal laboratory for testing fundamental physics. This article will briefly review the basic properties of black holes as expected from general…
Perturbed Kerr black holes emit gravitational radiation, which (for the practical purposes of gravitational-wave astronomy) consists of a superposition of damped sinusoids termed quasi-normal modes. The frequencies and time-constants of the…
Submilliarcsecond astrometry and imaging of the black hole Sgr A* at the Galactic Center may become possible in the near future at infrared and submillimetre wavelengths. This resolution is sufficient to observe the silhouette the…
In the presence of a rotating Kerr black hole, we investigate hydrodynamics of the massive particles and massless photons, to construct relations among number density, pressure and internal energy density of the massive particles and…
According to the general-relativistic no-hair theorem, astrophysical black holes depend only on their masses and spins and are uniquely described by the Kerr metric. Mass and spin are the first two multipole moments of the Kerr spacetime…
I review elements of the foundations of black-hole theory with attention to problematic issues, and describe some techniques which either seem to help with the difficulties or at least investigate their scope. The definition of black holes…
The recent announcement of the detection of gravitational waves by the LIGO/Virgo collaboration has opened a new window to test the nature of astrophysical black holes. Konoplya & Zhidenko have shown how the LIGO data of GW 150914 can…
SgrA$^*$, the supermassive black hole candidate at the Galactic Center, exhibits flares in the X-ray, NIR, and sub-mm bands that may be interpreted within a hot spot model. Light curves and images of hot spots orbiting a black hole are…
The statistical response of a Kerr black hole to incoming quantum radiation has heretofore been studied by the methods of maximum entropy or quantum field theory in curved spacetime. Neither approach pretends to take into account the…
Ongoing astronomical efforts extract physical properties of black holes from electromagnetic emissions in their near-vicinity. This requires finding the null geodesics which extend from the near-horizon region out to a distant observatory.…
Since it was theorized by Kerr in 1963, determining the spin of black holes from observed data was paid very little attention until few years back. The main reasons behind this were the unavailability of adequate data and the lack of…
In a previous paper, one of us has described a code to compute the thermal spectrum of geometrically thin and optically thick accretion disks around generic stationary and axisymmetric black holes, which are not necessarily of the Kerr…
A long march of fifty years of successive theoretical progress and new physics discovered using observations of gamma-ray bursts, has finally led to the formulation of an efficient mechanism able to extract the rotational energy of a Kerr…