Astrophysical Signatures of Black holes in Generalized Proca Theories

TL;DR

This paper investigates astrophysical signatures of black holes in generalized Proca theories, focusing on gravitational lensing, time delay, and black hole shadows, to explore potential observational evidence of Proca hair.

Contribution

It introduces new black hole solutions in Proca theories and analyzes their astrophysical signatures, including lensing and shadows, to identify observable effects of Proca hair.

Findings

Strong lensing and time delay effects differ from GR predictions.

Rotating black hole solutions exhibit distinct shadow features.

Proca hair could be detectable with future astronomical observations.

Abstract

Explaining the late time acceleration is one of the most challenging tasks for theoretical physicists today. Infra-red modification of Einstein's general theory of relativity (GR) is a possible route to model late time acceleration. In this regard, vector-tensor theory as a part of gravitational interactions on large cosmological scales, has been proposed recently. This involves generalization of massive Proca lagrangian in curved space time. Black hole solutions in such theories have also been constructed. In this paper, we study different astrophysical signatures of such black holes. We first study the strong lensing and time delay effect of such static spherically symmetric black hole solutions, in particular for the case of gravitational lensing of the star S2 by Sagittarius A* at the centre of Milky Way. We also construct the rotating black hole solution from this static spherically symmetric solution in Proca theories using the Newman-Janis algorithm and subsequently study lensing, time delay and black hole shadow effect in this rotating black hole space time. We discuss the possibility of detecting Proca hair in future observations.