Related papers: Prospects for Future Experimental Tests of Gravity…
The bright ring-like structures observed in the images of M87* and SgrA* captured by the Event Horizon Telescope strongly support the validity of general relativity. Lensed images of the emission region, often referred to as photon rings in…
We explore the universal symmetries of the black hole photon ring in a wide range of non-Kerr spacetimes, including the Kerr-Newman, Kerr-Sen, Kerr-Bardeen, and Kerr-Hayward metrics. The demagnification exponent ($\gamma$) controls the size…
Horizon-scale images of black holes (BHs) and their shadows have opened an unprecedented window onto tests of gravity and fundamental physics in the strong-field regime. We consider a wide range of well-motivated deviations from classical…
The images of supermassive black holes surrounded by optically-thin, radiatively-inefficient accretion flows, like those observed with the Event Horizon Telescope, are characterized by a bright ring of emission surrounding the black-hole…
Under very general assumptions on the accretion flow geometry, images of a black hole illuminated by electromagnetic radiation display a sequence of photon rings (demagnified and rotated copies of the direct image) which asymptotically…
The horizon-scale images of supermassive black holes (BHs) by the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration (EHT) have provided new opportunities to test general relativity and other theories of gravity. In view of future projects, such as the…
Astrophysical black holes are expected to be described by the Kerr metric. This is the only stationary, vacuum, axisymmetric metric, without electromagnetic charge, that satisfies Einstein's equations and does not have pathologies outside…
Our Galactic Center, Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), is believed to harbour a supermassive black hole (BH), as suggested by observations tracking individual orbiting stars. Upcoming sub-millimetre very-long-baseline-interferometry (VLBI) images of…
Black holes (BH) are objects described by General Relativity (GR), particularly by the Kerr solution. However, this solution is based on simplifying assumptions. To achieve a more realistic approach, we investigate the impact of deviations…
In General Relativity, the spacetimes of black holes have three fundamental properties: (i) they are the same, to lowest order in spin, as the metrics of stellar objects; (ii) they are independent of mass, when expressed in geometric units;…
Several works over the past years have discussed the possibility of testing fundamental physics using Very Long Baseline Interferometry horizon-scale black hole (BH) images, such as the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) images of M87$^*$ and…
The recently released images of the supermassive black holes in the M87 galaxy and the galaxy of our own make probing black hole spacetimes and testing general relativity (GR) possible. The violation of equatorial reflection symmetry of…
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) has provided a new tool for testing the strong-field regime of gravity by imaging the shadows of M87* and Sgr A*. These observations provide the first real opportunity to test whether quantum…
The 2017 Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) observations of the central source in M87 have led to the first measurement of the size of a black-hole shadow. This observation offers a new and clean gravitational test of the black-hole metric in…
Future black hole (BH) imaging observations are expected to resolve finer features corresponding to higher-order images of hotspots and of the horizon-scale accretion flow. In spherical spacetimes, the image order is determined by the…
The black hole shadow, first observed by the Event Horizon Telescope in 2017, is the newest method for studying black holes and understanding gravity. Much work has gone into understanding the shadow of a Kerr black hole, including all of…
With the imaging and characterization of the horizon-scale images of M87* and Sgr A* by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), it has become possible to resolve the near-horizon region of astrophysical black holes. As a result, there has been…
We address the astrophysical imaging of a family of deformed Kerr black holes (BHs). These are stationary, asymptotically flat black hole (BH) spacetimes, that are solutions of General Relativity minimally coupled to a massive, complex…
Testing gravity theory in the strong field region becomes a reality due to the observations of gravitational waves and black hole shadows. In this paper, we discuss how to constrain the possible deviations of the classical general…
We propose a new test of strong-field general relativity (GR) based on the universal interferometric signature of the black hole photon ring. The photon ring is a narrow ring-shaped feature, predicted by GR but not yet observed, that…