Related papers: A Beginner's Guide to Black Hole Imaging and Assoc…
The Event Horizon Telescope image of the supermassive black hole in the galaxy M87 is dominated by a bright, unresolved ring. General relativity predicts that embedded within this image lies a thin "photon ring," which is composed of an…
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…
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…
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…
Simulated images of a black hole surrounded by optically thin emission typically display two main features: a central brightness depression and a narrow, bright "photon ring" consisting of strongly lensed images superposed on top of the…
Our understanding of space and time is probed to its depths by black holes. These objects, which appear as a natural consequence of general relativity, provide a powerful analytical tool able to examine macroscopic and microscopic…
General relativity predicts that images of optically thin accretion flows around black holes should generically have a ``photon ring,'' composed of a series of increasingly sharp subrings that correspond to increasingly strongly lensed…
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…
Black hole images present an annular region of enhanced brightness. In the absence of propagation effects, this "photon ring" has universal features that are completely governed by general relativity and independent of the details of the…
The images of the supermassive black holes Sgr A* and M87* by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration mark a special milestone in the history of the subject. For the first time we are able to see the shadow of black holes, testing…
The horizon-scale images of black holes obtained with the Event Horizon Telescope have provided new probes of their metrics and tests of General Relativity. The images are characterized by a bright, near circular ring from the…
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…
Recent developments have ushered in a new era in the field of black hole astrophysics, providing our first direct view of the remarkable environment near black hole event horizons. These observations have enabled astronomers to confirm…
The Event Horizon Telescope Consortium is on the verge to provide the first telescopic image of massive black holes SgrA* and M87* surrounded by accretion disks, at a resolution scale comparable to the size of their event horizons. Well…
The images of supermassive black holes captured by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration have allowed us to have access to the physical processes that occur in the vicinity of the event horizons of these objects. This has enabled…
Recently, the image of a Schwarzschild black hole with an accretion disk has been revisited, and it showed that the "photon ring", defined as highly bent light rays that intersect the disk plane more than twice, is extremely narrow and…
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration recently published the first images of the supermassive black holes in the cores of the Messier 87 and Milky Way galaxies. These observations have provided a new means to study supermassive…
General relativity predicts that gravitational lensing near black holes will produce narrow "photon rings" on images. Building on recent work of Johnson, Lupsasca et al. focusing on circular rings, I calculate the long-baseline…
General relativity is one of the pillars of modern physics. For decades, the theory has been mainly tested in the weak field regime with experiments in the Solar System and radio observations of binary pulsars. Until 2015, the strong field…
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…