It is now theoretically well established that not only a black hole can cast shadow, but other compact objects such as naked singularities, gravastar or boson stars can also cast shadows. An intriguing fact that has emerged is that the event horizon
and the photon sphere are not necessary for a shadow to form. Now, when two different types of equally massive compact objects cast shadows of same size, then it would be very difficult to distinguish them from each other. However, the nature of the nulllike and timelike geodesics around the two compact objects would be different, since their spacetime geometries are different. Therefore, the intensity distribution of light emitted by the accreting matter around the compact objects would also be different. In this paper, we emphasize this phenomenon in detail. Here, we show that a naked singularity spacetime, namely, the first type of Joshi-Malafarina-Narayan (JMN1) spacetime can be distinguishable from the Schwarzschild blackhole spacetime by the intensity distribution of light, though they have same mass and shadow size. We also use the image processing techniques here to show this difference, where we use the theoretical intensity data. The differences that we get by using the image processing technique may be treated as a theoretical template of intensity differences, which may be useful to analyse the observational data of the image of a compact object.
It is generally believed that the shadows of either a black hole or naked singularity arise due to photon spheres developing in these spacetimes. Here we propose a new spherically symmetric naked singularity spacetime solution of Einstein equations w
hich has no photon sphere, and we show that the singularity casts a shadow in the absence of the photon sphere. We discuss some novel features of this shadow and the lightlike geodesics in this spacetime. We compare the shadow of the naked singularity here with shadows cast by Schwarzschild black hole and the first type of Joshi-Malafarina-Narayan (JMN1) naked singularity, where for the last two spacetimes the shadow is formed due to the presence of a photon sphere. It is seen, in particular, that the size of shadow of the singularity is considerably smaller than that of a black hole. Our analysis shows that the shadow of this naked singularity is distinguishable from the shadow of a Schwarzschild black hole and the JMN1 naked singularity. These results are useful and important in the context of recent observations of shadow of the M87 galactic center.
A rotating black hole causes the spin-axis of a nearby pulsar to precess due to geodetic and gravitomagnetic frame-dragging effects. The aim of our theoretical work here is to explore how this spin-precession can modify the rate at which pulses are r
eceived on earth. Towards this end, we obtain the complete evolution of the beam vectors of pulsars moving on equatorial circular orbits in the Kerr spacetime, relative to asymptotic fixed observers. We proceed to establish that such spin-precession effects can significantly modify observed pulse frequencies and, in specific, we find that the observed pulse frequency rises sharply as the orbit shrinks, potentially providing a new way to locate horizons of Kerr black holes, even if observed for a very short time period. We also discuss implications for detections of sub-millisecond pulsars, pulsar nulling, quasi-periodic oscillations, multiply-peaked pulsar Fourier profiles and how Kerr black holes can potentially be distinguished from naked singularities.
The superspinar proposed by Gimon and Horava is a rapidly rotating compact entity whose exterior is described by the over-spinning Kerr geometry. The compact entity itself is expected to be governed by superstringy effects, and in astrophysical scena
rios it can give rise to interesting observable phenomena. Earlier it was suggested that the superspinar may not be stable but we point out here that this does not necessarily follow from earlier studies. We show, by analytically treating the Teukolsky equations by Detwilers method, that in fact there are infinitely many boundary conditions that make the superspinar stable, and that the modes will decay in time. It follows that we need to know more on the physical nature of the superspinar in order to decide on its stability in physical reality.
Spherical vacuum and scalar collapse for the Starobinsky R^2 model is simulated. Obtained by considering the quantum-gravitational effects, this model would admit some cases of singularity-free cosmological spacetimes. It is found, however, that in v
acuum and scalar collapse, when f or the physical scalar field is strong enough, a black hole including a central singularity can be formed. In addition, near the central singularity, gravity dominates the repulsion from the potential, so that in some circumstances the Ricci scalar is pushed to infinity by gravity. Therefore, the semiclassical effects as included here do not avoid the singularity problem in general relativity. A strong physical scalar field can prevent the Ricci scalar from growing to infinity. Vacuum collapse for the RlnR model is explored, and it is observed that for this model the Ricci scalar can also go to infinity as the central singularity is approached. Therefore, this feature seems universal in vacuum and scalar collapse in f(R) gravity.
We study spherical scalar collapse toward a black hole formation and examine the asymptotic dynamics near the central singularity of the formed black hole. It is found that, in the vicinity of the singularity, due to the strong backreaction of a scal
ar field on the geometry, the mass function inflates and the Kretschmann scalar grows faster than in the Schwarzschild geometry. In collapse, the Misner-Sharp mass is a locally conserved quantity, not providing information on the black hole mass that is measured at asymptotically flat regions.
In this paper, we explore the interior dynamics of neutral and charged black holes in $f(R)$ gravity. We transform $f(R)$ gravity from the Jordan frame into the Einstein frame and simulate scalar collapses in flat, Schwarzschild, and Reissner-Nordstr
om geometries. In simulating scalar collapses in Schwarzschild and Reissner-Nordstrom geometries, Kruskal and Kruskal-like coordinates are used, respectively, with the presence of $f$ and a physical scalar field being taken into account. The dynamics in the vicinities of the central singularity of a Schwarzschild black hole and of the inner horizon of a Reissner-Nordstrom black hole is examined. Approximate analytic solutions for different types of collapses are partially obtained. The scalar degree of freedom $phi$, transformed from $f$, plays a similar role as a physical scalar field in general relativity. Regarding the physical scalar field in $f(R)$ case, when $dphi/dt$ is negative (positive), the physical scalar field is suppressed (magnified) by $phi$, where $t$ is the coordinate time. For dark energy $f(R)$ gravity, inside black holes, gravity can easily push $f$ to $1$. Consequently, the Ricci scalar $R$ becomes singular, and the numerical simulation breaks down. This singularity problem can be avoided by adding an $R^2$ term to the original $f(R)$ function, in which case an infinite Ricci scalar is pushed to regions where $f$ is also infinite. On the other hand, in collapse for this combined model, a black hole, including a central singularity, can be formed. Moreover, under certain initial conditions, $f$ and $R$ can be pushed to infinity as the central singularity is approached. Therefore, the classical singularity problem, which is present in general relativity, remains in collapse for this combined model.
We make a critical comparison between ultra-high energy particle collisions around an extremal Kerr black hole and that around an over-spinning Kerr singularity, mainly focusing on the issue of the timescale of collisions. We show that the time requi
red for two massive particles with the proton mass or two massless particles of GeV energies to collide around the Kerr black hole with Planck energy is several orders of magnitude longer than the age of the Universe for astro-physically relevant masses of black holes, whereas time required in the over-spinning case is of the order of ten million years which is much shorter than the age of the Universe. Thus from the point of view of observation of Planck scale collisions, the over-spinning Kerr geometry, subject to their occurrence, has distinct advantage over their black hole counterparts.
The phenomena of collapse and dispersal for a massless scalar field has drawn considerable interest in recent years, mainly from a numerical perspective. We give here a sufficient condition for the dispersal to take place for a scalar field that init
ially begins with a collapse. It is shown that the change of the gradient of the scalar field from a timelike to a spacelike vector must be necessarily accompanied by the dispersal of the scalar field. This result holds independently of any symmetries of the spacetime. We demonstrate the result explicitly by means of an example, which is the scalar field solution given by Roberts. The implications of the result are discussed.
We consider here the existence and structure of trapped surfaces, horizons and singularities in spherically symmetric static massless scalar field spacetimes. Earlier studies have shown that there exists no event horizon in such spacetimes if the sca
lar field is asymptotically flat. We extend this result here to show that this is true in general for spherically symmetric static massless scalar field spacetimes, whether the scalar field is asymptotically flat or not. Other general properties and certain important features of these models are also discussed.
