Related papers: Seeing the unseeable
Quantum-gravity effects in black holes are generally expected to be unobservable if they set in at transplanckian curvature scales. Here, we challenge this expectation. A near-critical spin parameter can serve as a lever arm that translates…
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…
In recent years, the evidence for the existence of an ultra-compact concentration of dark mass associated with the radio source Sgr A* in the Galactic Center has become very strong. However, an unambiguous proof that this object is indeed a…
We discuss some of the drawbacks of using event horizons to define black holes. The reasons are both practical, physical and theoretical. We argue that locally defined trapping horizons can remedy many of these drawbacks. We examine of the…
The Black Hole Explorer (BHEX) is a space-based very-long baseline interferometry (VLBI) mission aimed at precision black hole measurements, detecting the photon ring around black holes, exploring spacetime, spin, and mass properties, and…
When adopted in black hole spacetimes, geometric-optics approximations imply a mapping between the quasinormal mode (QNM) spectrum of black holes in the eikonal limit and black hole images. In particular, the real part and the imaginary…
Interferometric observations of microlensing events have the potential to provide unique constraints on the physical properties of the lensing systems. In this work, we first present a formalism that closely combines interferometric and…
Gravitational lensing is a well known phenomenon predicted by the General Theory of Relativity. It is now a well-developed observational technique in astronomy and is considered to be a fundamental tool for acquiring information about the…
This chapter provides an overview of tidal disruption events, aiming to provide an overview of both the theoretical and the observational state of the field, with the overarching goal of introducing them as tools to indirectly observe…
Deviations from Hawking's thermal black hole spectrum, observable for macroscopic black holes, are derived from a model of a quantum horizon in loop quantum gravity. These arise from additional area eigenstates present in quantum surfaces…
The speckle imaging is a photographic technique that resolves objects viewed through severely distorted media. The results are insensitive to the errors caused by apparent size of the isoplanatic patch and the telescope aberrations. In this…
The observation of the shadows cast by the event horizon of black holes on the light emitted in its neighborhood is the target of current very-long-baseline-interferometric observations. When considering supermassive black holes, the light…
A recently developed tool allows for a description of spacetime as a manifold with a Lorentz-invariant (lower) limit length built-in. This is accomplished in terms of geometric quantities depending on two spacetime events (bitensors) and…
The International X-ray Observatory (IXO) is a joint ESA-JAXA-NASA effort to address fundamental and timely questions in astrophysics: What happens close to a black hole? How did supermassive black holes grow? How does large scale structure…
The event horizon of a black hole is arguably the most dramatic manifestation of the fact that in General Relativity, causal structure is dynamical and spacetimes can be separated into distinct regions by causal boundaries. Causal set…
Observations of black hole shadows with the Event Horizon Telescope have paved way for a novel approach to testing Einstein's theory of general relativity. Early analyses of the measured shadow put constraints on theory-agnostic parameters…
The question "How did we get here and what will the future bring?" captures the human imagination and the attention of the National Academy of Science's Astronomy and Astrophysics Survey Commitee (AASC). Fulfillment of this "fundamental…
The energy losses of a small black hole passing through the Earth are examined. In particular, we investigate the excitations in the frequency range accessible to modern acoustic detectors. The main contribution to the effect is given by…
Traditionally, a black hole is a region of space with huge gravitational field, which absorbs everything hitting it. In history, the black hole was first discussed by Laplace under the Newton mechanics, whose event horizon radius is the…
Black holes are among the most intriguing objects in modern physics. Their influence ranges from powering quasars and other active galactic nuclei, to providing key insights into quantum gravity. We review the observational evidence for…