Related papers: A Primer to Slow Light
Following the 2019 release by the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration of the first pictures of a supermassive black hole, there has been an explosion of interest in black hole images, their theoretical interpretation, and their potential…
Recent advances, including gravitational wave detections and imaging of black hole shadows, have strongly validated general relativity. Nevertheless, ongoing cosmological observations suggest potential limitations of general relativity,…
The properties of the relativistic rings which show up in images of a source when a black hole lies between the source and observer are examined. The impact parameters are calculated, along with the distances of closest approach of the rays…
Aspects of primordial black holes, i.e. black holes formed in the early Universe, are reviewed. Special emphasis is put on their formation, their role as dark matter candidates and their manifold signatures, particularly through…
The black hole paradigm, while remarkably successful, raises fundamental questions-both classical and quantum-about the nature of spacetime, horizons, and singularities. Black hole mimickers, horizonless ultra-compact objects, have emerged…
The search for solutions of Einstein's equations representing relativistic cosmological models with a discrete matter content has been remarkably fruitful in the last decade. In this review we discuss the progress made in the study of a…
Retrolensing is a gravitational lensing effect in which light emitted by a background source is deflected by a black hole and redirected toward the observer after undergoing nearly complete loops around the black hole. In this context, we…
Astronomers have certainly observed things that are small, dark, and heavy. But are these objects really black holes in the sense of general relativity? The consensus opinion is simply "yes", and there is very little "wriggle room". We…
Black holes are thought to describe the geometry of massive, dark compact objects in the universe. To further support and quantify this long-held belief requires knowledge of possible, if exotic alternatives. Here, we wish to understand how…
We describe the possible forms of black hole images, viewed by a distant observer. These images are numerically calculated basing on general relativity and equations of motion in the Kerr-Newman metric. Black hole image is a gravitationally…
We consider a system of black holes -- a simplest substitute of a system of point particles in the mechanics of general relativity -- and try to describe their motion with the help of entropic action: a sum of the areas of black hole…
Black and white holes play remarkably contrasting roles in general relativity versus observational astrophysics. While there is overwhelming observational evidence for the existence of compact objects that are "cold, dark, and heavy", which…
In the cold dark matter scenario, dark matter halos are assembled hierarchically from smaller subunits. Some of these subunits are disrupted during the merging process, whereas others survive temporarily in the form of subhalos. A…
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…
We study strong gravitational lensing due to a Schwarzschild black hole. Apart from the primary and the secondary images we find a sequence of images on both sides of the optic axis; we call them {\em relativistic images}. These images are…
Following a short account of the history of the idea of black holes, we present a review of the current status of the search for observational evidence of their existence aimed at an audience of relativists rather than astronomers or…
The Editors of \emph{Viewpoint} requested a brief report on Norman G\"urlebeck's recent results \cite{1} concerning black holes in astrophysical environments. The first draft I wrote assumed knowledge of general relativity at the level of a…
This set of lectures is an introduction to black-hole astrophysics. The emphasis is made on the phenomenology of X-ray binaries and of supermassive compact objects at galactic centers.
Most general relativity textbooks devote considerable space to the simplest example of a black hole containing a singularity, the Schwarzschild geometry. However only a few discuss the dynamical process of gravitational collapse, by which…
We show experimentally that the effects of "slow and fast light" that are considered to be caused by spectral hole-burning under conditions of coherent population oscillations (CPO) can be universally observed with incoherent light fields…