Lensing by Kerr Black Holes

TL;DR

This paper develops an analytical framework to understand null geodesics in Kerr spacetime, elucidating the formation and properties of photon rings around black holes, which are crucial for interpreting horizon-scale observations.

Contribution

It introduces heuristics and defines critical parameters to characterize direct and highly bent geodesics, providing a universal analytic theory of the photon ring in Kerr black holes.

Findings

Defined three critical parameters $b3$, $b4$, and $c4$ controlling photon ring features.

Provided an analytic description of the demagnification, rotation, and time delay of images.

Revealed universal effects of general relativity on black hole imaging.

Abstract

Interpreting horizon-scale observations of astrophysical black holes demands a general understanding of null geodesics in the Kerr spacetime. These may be divided into two classes: "direct" rays that primarily determine the observational appearance of a given source, and highly bent rays that produce a nested sequence of exponentially demagnified images of the main emission: the so-called "photon ring". We develop heuristics that characterize the direct rays and study the highly bent geodesics analytically. We define three critical parameters $\gamma$, $\delta$, and $\tau$ that respectively control the demagnification, rotation, and time delay of successive images of the source, thereby providing an analytic theory of the photon ring. These observable parameters encode universal effects of general relativity, independent of the details of the emitting matter.