Null geodesics and shadow of a rotating black hole in extended Chern-Simons modified gravity

TL;DR

This paper investigates how a rotating black hole's shadow is affected in extended Chern-Simons modified gravity, revealing deformations caused by the coupling to the Chern-Simons term in the slow rotation approximation.

Contribution

It provides the first analysis of null geodesics and black hole shadow deformation in extended Chern-Simons gravity for rotating black holes beyond the Kerr solution.

Findings

Null geodesic equations can be integrated in the slow rotation approximation.

The black hole shadow shape is deformed by the Chern-Simons coupling.

Rotation and coupling influence the shadow's size and shape.

Abstract

The Chern-Simons modification to general relativity in four dimensions consists of adding to the Einstein-Hilbert term a scalar field that couples to the first class Pontryagin density. In this theory, which has attracted considerable attention recently, the Schwarzschild metric persists as an exact solution, and this is why this model resists several observational constraints. In contrast, the spinning black hole solution of the theory is not given by the Kerr metric but by a modification of it, so far only known for slow rotation and small coupling constant. In the present paper, we show that, in this approximation, the null geodesic equation can be integrated, and this allows us to investigate the shadow cast by a black hole. We discuss how, in addition to the angular momentum of the solution, the coupling to the Chern-Simons term deforms the shape of the shadow.