Using the shadow of a black hole to examine the energy exchange between axion matter and a rotating black hole

TL;DR

This paper explores how axion matter influences the shadow and lensing of a rotating black hole, revealing novel shapes and chaotic scattering effects that challenge previous assumptions about black hole shadows.

Contribution

It demonstrates that axion-modified black holes can have unique shadow shapes and chaotic lensing, providing the first counterexample to the idea that slowly rotating black holes have nearly circular shadows.

Findings

Black hole shadow can be D-shaped or human-face-like due to axion effects.

Chaotic lensing occurs, leading to distinctive scattering patterns.

Slowly rotating black holes can have non-circular shadows, contrary to prior beliefs.

Abstract

We find that a \textit{slowly} rotating axion-modified black hole resulting from the backreaction of an axion field on a rotating Kerr black hole can have a \textit{D-shaped} shadow as that for a \textit{highly} counter-rotating Kerr black hole. This attributes to the fact that the energy exchange between the axion matter and the black hole influences the rotation of the black hole, so the black hole angular momentum first decreases to zero and then the black hole starts to rotate to the opposite direction. Further increasing the coupling leads to \textit{``human-face-like" shaped} shadows and new lensing due to the chaotic scattering, which are novel and drastically different from Kerr black hole. Our analysis provides the first counterexample to that slowly rotating black hole has nearly circular shadow.