Related papers: Retro-MACHOs: Pi in the sky?
When the the shadow image of a supermassive black hole in the center of M87 was obtained a new era in the observational astrophysics began. The resolution improvement would allow to test extended gravity models at event horizon scales. We…
We study the photon's motion around a black hole in the presence of a plasma whose density is a function of the radius coordinate by a renewed ray-tracing algorithm and investigate the influence of the plasma on the shadow of the black…
It is well known that a hypothetical compact object that looks like an Einsteinian (Schwarzschild or Kerr) black hole everywhere except a small region near its surface should have the ringdown profile predicted by the Einstein theory at…
The recent discovery of a large number of massive black holes within the first two billion years after the Big Bang, as well as their peculiar properties, have been largely unexpected based on the extrapolation of the properties of luminous…
Astrophysical black holes are likely to be surrounded by various forms of matter in the form of disks or halos. While a number of studies have examined the impact of an environment on the lensing of light or gravitational waves from…
The Event Horizon Telescope recently produced the first images of a black hole. These images were synthesized by measuring the coherent correlation function of the complex electric field measured at telescopes located across the Earth. This…
Though stellar-mass black holes (BHs) are likely abundant in the Milky Way (N=10^8-10^9), only ~20 have been detected to date, all in accreting binary systems (Casares 2006). Gravitational microlensing is a proposed technique to search for…
The shadows cast by non-rotating and rotating modified gravity (MOG) black holes are determined by the two parameters mass $M$ and angular momentum $J=Ma$. The sizes of the shadows cast by the spherically symmetric static Schwarzschild-MOG…
Massive Compact objects in the halo, known as MACHOs, have been postulated as the origin of a substantial fraction of `dark matter' known to exist in the haloes of galaxies$^{1,2}$. Paczy\'nski$^3$ has suggested that it might possible to…
Photon rings near the edge of a black hole shadow is supposed to be a unique tool to validate general relativity and provide reliable measurements of principal black hole parameters: spin and mass. Such measurements are possible though only…
We present the basics of microlensing and give an overview of the results obtained so far. We also describe a scenario in which dark clusters of MACHOs (Massive Astrophysical Compact Halo Objects) and cold molecular clouds (mainly of $H_2$)…
We study gravitational wave microlensing by primordial black holes (PBHs), accounting for the effect of a particle dark matter minihalo surrounding them. Such minihaloes are expected when PBHs make up only a fraction of all dark matter. We…
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…
We consider the black hole (BH) shadow images which can be restored by data processing and image recovery procedures in future space Very Large Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) missions. For Kerr BHs with masses and coordinates of SgrA*, M87*…
We construct exact black hole solutions free of curvature singularities, sourced by dark matter halos described by galactic density profiles. Regularity of the geometry is ensured by adopting the relation $P_{r}=-\rho$ between radial…
Annihilations of weakly interacting dark matter particles provide an important signature for the possibility of indirect detection of dark matter in galaxy halos. These self-annihilations can be greatly enhanced in the vicinity of a massive…
The effect of stars on the lensing properties of the supermassive black hole in the Galactic Center is similar to the effect of planets on microlensing by a star. We show that the dense stellar cluster around SgrA* increases by factors of a…
We discuss formation of dark matter (DM) mini-halos around primordial black holes (PBHs) and its implication on DM direct detection experiments, including axion searches. Motivated by LIGO observations, we consider $f_{\textrm{DM}} \simeq…
Dark matter is an important ingredient of galaxies, as was recognised early on by Ken Freeman himself! Evidence for dark matter halos is still indirect, based on analysing motions of tracers such as gas and stars. In a sense the visible…
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…