Related papers: A Primer to Slow Light
For ultra compact objects (UCOs), Light Rings (LRs) and Fundamental Photon Orbits (FPOs) play a pivotal role in the theoretical analysis of strong gravitational lensing effects, and of BH shadows in particular. In this short review,…
In this manuscript, we provide a comprehensive study of gravitational lensing by dark compact objects predicted by a Modified Gravity (MOG) based on the Scalar-Vector-Tensor action, and the aim is to analyze new insights into the nature of…
Gravitational waves from binary black holes that are gravitationally lensed can be distorted by small microlenses along the line of sight. Microlenses with masses of a few tens of solar masses, and that are close to a critical curve in the…
Small,quiescent black holes can be considered as candidates for the missing dark matter of the universe,and as the core energy source of ball lightning.By means of gravitational tunneling,directed radiation is emitted from black holes in a…
We show that black holes can be made of light by adding gravity to the discussion of Alvarez-Dominguez et al., arXiv:2405.02389 [PRL 130, 041401 (2024)].
Microlensing observations have now become a useful tool in searching for non--luminous astrophysical compact objects (brown dwarfs, faint stars, neutron stars, black holes and even planets). Originally conceived for establishing whether the…
The dark and dynamic parts of the Galaxy, including the bulk shape and movement of the Galactic Bulge and characteristics of dark compact object populations, such as a hypothetical population of primordial black holes (PBHs), are difficult…
We model the light-curves from radiation-driven clouds near an accreting black hole. Taking into account the multiple images due to strong gravitational lensing, we find that sharp spikes can significantly enhance the observed flux.…
By etching a hole in the mirrors or by placing a scatterer in the center of a cavity, we can create a sink for light. In a Bose-Einstein condensate of photons this sink results in the creation of a so-called radial vortex, which is a…
The classical spacetime is usually described by a differentiable manifold with infinitely many degrees of freedom. Occasionally though, it is useful to consider an approximation whose number of degrees of freedom is finite. There are…
The Standard Model of particle physics predicts the speed of light to be a universal speed of propagation of massless carriers. However, other possibilities exist -- including Lorentz-violating theories -- where different fundamental fields…
If TeV-scale gravity describes nature, black holes will be produced in particle accelerators, perhaps even with impressive rates at the Large Hadron Collider. Their decays, largely via the Hawking process, will be spectacular. Black holes…
The bell-like ringdown of the gravitational field in the last stage of the merging of massive black holes is now routinely detected on earth by the last generation of gravitational wave detectors. Its spectrum is interpreted as a sum of…
Massless black holes can be understood as bound states of a (positive mass) extreme a=\sqrt{3} black hole and a singular object with opposite (i.e. negative) mass with vanishing ADM (total) mass but non-vanishing gravitational field.…
In this work we generalize an earlier treatment of the measurements of velocities at the event horizon of a black hole. This is intended as a pedagogical exercise as well as one more contribution to the resolution of some unphysical…
More than half of the volume of our Universe is occupied by cosmic voids. The lensing magnification effect from those under-dense regions is generally thought to give a small dimming contribution: objects on the far side of a void are…
This is a short note to announce the availability of some movies that may be useful in classroom discussions on the photographic appearance of objects moving at relativistic speeds. The images are based on special relativity with no account…
Small-scale clumps of dark matter are gravitationally bounded structures that have masses comparable to or lower than stellar masses and consist of noninteracting or weakly interacting dark matter particles. In this paper, the current…
This paper reviews statistical methods recently developed to reconstruct and analyze dark matter mass maps from weak lensing observations. The field of weak lensing is motivated by the observations made in the last decades showing that the…
This paper provides a brief review of the history of our understanding and knowledge of black holes. Starting with early speculations on ``dark stars'' I discuss the Schwarzschild "black hole" solution to Einstein's field equations and the…