Brightness Asymmetry of Black Hole Images as a Probe of Observer Inclination

The Event Horizon Telescope recently captured images of the supermassive black hole in the center of the M87 galaxy, which shows a ring-like emission structure with the south side only slightly brighter than the north side. This relatively weak asymmetry in the brightness profile along the ring has been interpreted as a consequence of the low inclination of the observer (around 17° for M87), which suppresses the Doppler beaming and boosting effects that might otherwise be expected due to the nearly relativistic velocities of the orbiting plasma. In this work, we use a large suite of general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations to reassess the validity of this argument. By constructing explicit counterexamples, we show that low inclination is a sufficient but not necessary condition for images to have low brightness asymmetry. Accretion flow models with high accumulated magnetic flux close to the black hole horizon (the so-called magnetically arrested disks) and low black hole spins have angular velocities that are substantially smaller than the orbital velocities of test particles at the same location. As a result, such models can produce images with low brightness asymmetry even when viewed edge on.

Gravitational bending angle with finite distances by Casimir wormholes

In this paper, we investigate the gravitational bending angle due to the Casimir wormholes, which consider the Casimir energy as the source. Furthermore, some of these Casimir wormholes regard Generalized Uncertainty Principle (GUP) corrections of Casimir energy. We use the Ishihara method for the Jacobi metric, which allows us to study the bending angle of light and massive test particles for finite distances. Beyond the uncorrected Casimir source, we consider many GUP corrections, namely, the Kempf, Mangano and Mann (KMM) model, the Detournay, Gabriel and Spindel (DGS) model, and the so-called type II model for the GUP principle. We also find the deflection angle of light and massive particles in the case of the receiver and the source are far away from the lens. In this case, we also compute the optical scalars: convergence and shear for these Casimir wormholes as a gravitational weak lens. Our self-consistent iterative calculations indicate corrections to the bending angle by Casimir wormholes in the previous paper.

Epicyclic oscillations in spinning particle motion around Kerr black hole applied in models fitting the quasi-periodic oscillations observed in microquasars and AGNs

The study of the quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) of X-ray flux observed in the stellar-mass black hole (BH) binaries or quasars can provide a powerful tool for testing the phenomena occurring in strong gravity regime. We thus fit the data of QPOs observed in the well known microquasars as well as active galactic nuclei (AGNs) in the framework of the model of geodesic oscillations of Keplerian disks modified for the epicyclic oscillations of spinning test particles orbiting Kerr BHs. We show that the modified geodesic models of QPOs can explain the observational fixed data from the microquasars and AGNs but not for all sources. We perform a successful fitting of the high frequency QPOs models of epicyclic resonance and its variants, relativistic precession and its variants, tidal disruption, as well as warped disc models, and discuss the corresponding constraints of parameters of the model, which are the spin of the test particle, mass and rotation of the BH.

Implications for the hierarchy problem, inflation and geodesic motion from fiber fabric of spacetime

In this paper, we represent a resolution for the hierarchy problem where the inverse size of the extra dimension and the fundamental Planck scale would all be of the order of the TeV scale by proposing a fiber fabric of spacetime. The origin of the large hierarchy is essentially due to the $$\cosh $$ cosh function which is physically originated from the dynamics of the horizontal metric in the vacuum of non-zero energy. In addition, the fiber fabric of spacetime allows us to resolve elegantly and naturally the problems of the chirality fermions and stabilizing potential for the size of the extra dimension, which are usually encountered in the higher dimensional theories. Then, we explore the inflation with the modulus of the extra dimension identified as the inflaton where our slow-roll inflationary model belongs to the E-model class with $$n=1$$ n = 1 . We calculate the main inflationary observables which are consistent with the present experiments. Finally, we study how the geodesic motion of neutral test particles gets modified from the extension of spacetime. We compute the radius of the photon sphere, the innermost stable circular orbit, the perihelion shift, the light bending angle, and the observables of the strong gravitational lensing and the retrolensing phenomenon. By comparing the predicted values with the experimental observations, we determine the constraints on the fiber fabric of spacetime.

A Note on the Gravitoelectromagnetic Analogy

We discuss the linear gravitoelectromagnetic approach used to solve Einstein’s equations in the weak-field and slow-motion approximation, which is a powerful tool to explain, by analogy with electromagnetism, several gravitational effects in the solar system, where the approximation holds true. In particular, we discuss the analogy, according to which Einstein’s equations can be written as Maxwell-like equations, and focus on the definition of the gravitoelectromagnetic fields in non-stationary conditions. Furthermore, we examine to what extent, starting from a given solution of Einstein’s equations, gravitoelectromagnetic fields can be used to describe the motion of test particles using a Lorentz-like force equation.

Quasi-Periodic Oscillatory Motion of Particles Orbiting a Distorted, Deformed Compact Object

This work explores the dynamic properties of test particles surrounding a distorted, deformed compact object. The astrophysical motivation was to choose such a background as to constitute a more reasonable model of a real situation that arises in the vicinity of compact objects with the possibility of having parameters such as the extra physical degrees of freedom. This can facilitate associating observational data with astrophysical systems. This work’s main goal is to study the dynamic regime of motion and quasi-periodic oscillation in this background, depending on different parameters of the system. In addition, we exercise the resonant phenomena of the radial and vertical oscillations at their observed quasi-periodic oscillations frequency ratio 3:2 and show that the oscillatory frequencies of charged particles can be adequately related to the frequencies of the twin high-frequency quasi-periodic oscillations observed in some sources of the microquasar observational data.

iCompare: A Package for Automated Comparison of Solar System Integrators*

We present a tool for the comparison and validation of the integration packages suitable for Solar System dynamics. iCompare, written in Python, compares the ephemeris prediction accuracy of a suite of commonly-used integration packages (JPL/HORIZONS, OpenOrb, OrbFit at present). It integrates a set of test particles with orbits picked to explore both usual and unusual regions in Solar System phase space and compares the computed to reference ephemerides. The results are visualized in an intuitive dashboard. This allows for the assessment of integrator suitability as a function of population, as well as monitoring their performance from version to version (a capability needed for the Rubin Observatory’s software pipeline construction efforts). We provide the code on GitHub with a readily runnable version in Binder (https://github.com/dirac-institute/iCompare).

Cherenkov Gravitational Radiation during the Radiation Era

Cherenkov radiation may occur whenever the source is moving faster than the waves it generates. In a radiation dominated universe, with equation-of-state w=1/3, we have recently shown that the Bardeen scalar-metric perturbations contribute to the linearized Weyl tensor in such a manner that its wavefront propagates at acoustic speed w=1/3. In this work, we explicitly compute the shape of the Bardeen Cherenkov cone and wedge generated respectively by a supersonic point mass (approximating a primordial black hole) and a straight Nambu-Goto wire (approximating a cosmic string) moving perpendicular to its length. When the black hole or cosmic string is moving at ultra-relativistic speeds, we also calculate explicitly the sudden surge of scalar-metric induced tidal forces on a pair of test particles due to the passing Cherenkov shock wave. These forces can stretch or compress, depending on the orientation of the masses relative to the shock front’s normal.