Measuring the shape of a black hole photon ring

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

26 Scopus citations

Abstract

General relativity predicts that gravitational lensing near black holes will produce narrow "photon rings"on images. Building on recent work of Johnson, Lupsasca et al. focusing on circular rings, I calculate the long-baseline interferometric signature of a narrow feature of arbitrary shape and intensity. The shape information is contained in the oscillation frequencies of the complex visibility as a function of baseline length, for each baseline angle. These results raise the possibility of measuring the detailed shape of a photon ring and comparing to the precise predictions of general relativity.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number044017
JournalPhysical Review D
Volume102
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 15 2020

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous)

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Measuring the shape of a black hole photon ring'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this