Akhil
Uniyal
Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Abstract
The horizon-scale images of supermassive black holes (BHs) by the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration have provided new opportunities to test general relativity and other theories of gravity. In view of future projects, such as the next-generation Event Horizon Telescope and the Black Hole Explorer, which have the potential to enhance our ability to probe extreme gravity, it is natural to ask how much two BH images can differ. To address this question and assess the ability of these projects to test theories of gravity with BH shadows, we use general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamic and radiative-transfer simulations to investigate the images of a wide class of accreting BHs deviating from the Kerr solution. By measuring the mismatch between images of different BHs, we show that future missions will be able to distinguish a large class of BH solutions from the Kerr solution when the mismatch in the images exceeds values between 2% and 5% depending on the image-comparison metric considered. These results indicate that future horizon-scale imaging with percent-level image fidelity can place meaningful observational constraints on deviations from the Kerr metric and thereby test strong-field predictions of general relativity.
Zoom:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81514948789pwd=k4HQdJZ8bJzi4cFwlJUDIGytri1JIW.1
Meeting ID: 815 1494 8789
Passcode: 799936
Location:
room 203, Al. Lotników / Zoom
