Related papers: Constraining spherically symmetric metrics by the …
Black hole shadow images are primarily determined by the properties of photon spheres and can exhibit degeneracies across different spherically symmetric spacetime geometries. We show that time delay observables associated with higher-order…
Photon sphere has attracted significant attention since the capture of black hole shadow images by Event Horizon Telescope. Recently, a number of studies have highlighted that the number of photon spheres and their distributions near black…
The black hole shadow is fundamentally connected to the structure of light rings and the photon region in the background geometry. We investigate the photon region boundary in a generic asymptotically flat, stationary, axisymmetric black…
We consider the optical appearance of a non-singular, spherically symmetric black hole from Eddington-inspired Born-Infeld gravity coupled to anisotropic fluids. Such a black hole has a single (external) horizon located very near the…
The central supermassive black hole of the galaxy M87 is currently a target for precision spin measurement using high-resolution, horizon-scale imaging. Such observations aim to resolve the first lensed (${n}~{=}~{1}$) sub-image of the…
We present a detailed study of higher-order photon rings of an accreting Kerr naked singularity (KNS) with dimensionless spin parameter $a=1.01$; i.e., a horizonless, overly spinning compact object. Motivated by horizon-scale…
In this work, we derive new analytic, static, symmetric black hole solutions in theories involving dark photons with minimal and higher-order magnetic dipole interactions. Starting from the effective non-relativistic potential between…
Light circling around an astrophysical black hole can spend a long time skirting its unstably bound photon orbits before escaping to infinity. To a distant observer, this orbiting light would appear as a bright ring encircling the image of…
We investigate gravitational lensing by a photon sphere in a Reissner-Nordstr\"{o}m naked singularity spacetime in strong deflection limits. Because of the nonexistence of an event horizon and the existence of a potential barrier near an…
In this research note we introduce a new approximation of photon geodesics in Schwarzschild spacetime which is especially useful to describe highly bent trajectories, for which the angle between the initial emission position and the line of…
Black holes in General Relativity are described by space-time metrics that are simpler in comparison to non-vacuum compact objects. However, given the universality of the gravitational pull, it is expected that dark matter accumulates…
We provide an analytic method to discriminate among different types of black holes on the ground of their strong field gravitational lensing properties. We expand the deflection angle of the photon in the neighbourhood of complete capture,…
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…
We study black hole imaging in the context of geometrically thick accretion disks in Schwarzschild spacetime. By decomposing the emitting region into a set of one-dimensional luminous segments, each characterized by its inclination angle…
Within quantum-gravity approaches and beyond, different mechanisms for singularity resolution in black holes exist. Under a set of assumptions that we spell out in detail, these mechanisms leave their imprint in shadow images of spherically…
Horizons and bound photon orbits are defining features of black holes that translate into key features of black hole images. We present a purely geometric proof that spherically symmetric, isolated objects with horizons in gravity theories…
In this paper, we investigate the gravitational lensing and accretion disk imaging characteristics of a dense core modeled by the Buchdahl spacetime. By imposing the appropriate energy conditions and ensuring the absence of curvature…
In this work, we establish the existence conditions and a universal upper bound on the radius of stable photon spheres (SPS) outside the event horizons of static, spherically symmetric, asymptotically flat black holes surrounded by matter…
We propose a new procedure for measuring the spin of a black hole with an unprecedented accuracy based on the gravitational lensing of millisecond pulsars. We derive the basic equations for lensing by a rotating black hole. We show that the…
We investigate black holes with non-minimal couplings between the electromagnetic field and spacetime curvature, focusing on their event horizons, shadows, and photon rings. Such couplings can naturally arise from both classical effective…