The Current Ability to Test Theories of Gravity with Black Hole Shadows

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the potential of upcoming EHTC images of Sgr A* to test general relativity by comparing simulated black hole shadows in Kerr and alternative gravity theories, highlighting the difficulty in distinguishing them.

Contribution

It introduces the first GRMHD and GRRT simulations for a dilaton black hole, comparing them with Kerr black hole images to assess observational distinguishability.

Findings

EHTC images may not clearly differentiate Kerr and alternative gravity black holes.

Simulations show similar shadow features for Kerr and dilaton black holes.

Caution is advised in interpreting black hole images as definitive tests of GR.

Abstract

Our Galactic Center, Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), is believed to harbour a supermassive black hole (BH), as suggested by observations tracking individual orbiting stars. Upcoming sub-millimetre very-long-baseline-interferometry (VLBI) images of Sgr A* carried out by the Event-Horizon-Telescope Collaboration (EHTC) are expected to provide critical evidence for the existence of this supermassive BH. We assess our present ability to use EHTC images to determine if they correspond to a Kerr BH as predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity (GR) or to a BH in alternative theories of gravity. To this end, we perform general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamical (GRMHD) simulations and use general-relativistic radiative transfer (GRRT) calculations to generate synthetic shadow images of a magnetised accretion flow onto a Kerr BH. In addition, and for the first time, we perform GRMHD simulations and GRRT calculations for a dilaton BH, which we take as a representative solution of an alternative theory of gravity. Adopting the VLBI configuration from the 2017 EHTC campaign, we find that it could be extremely difficult to distinguish between BHs from different theories of gravity, thus highlighting that great caution is needed when interpreting BH images as tests of GR.