Outflows from naked singularities, infall through the black hole horizon: hydrodynamic simulations of accretion in the Reissner-Nordstr\"om space-time

TL;DR

This paper presents hydrodynamic simulations of accretion onto Reissner-Nordström black holes and naked singularities, revealing distinct behaviors and outflows that could impact observations of galactic nuclei by the Event Horizon Telescope.

Contribution

First hydrodynamic simulations of accretion onto Reissner-Nordström spacetimes, comparing black holes and naked singularities in a relativistic context.

Findings

Black hole accretion involves matter plunging into the horizon.

Naked singularities produce toroidal structures and powerful outflows.

Results may help interpret EHT observations of galactic centers.

Abstract

We performed the first simulations of accretion onto the compact objects in the Reissner-Nordstr\"{o}m (RN) spacetime. The results obtained in general relativity are representative of those for spherically symmetric naked singularities and black holes in a number of modified gravity theories. A possible application of these calculations is to the active galactic nuclei (AGNs) with their powerful jets. It is now possible to compare the results of such simulations with the accreting supermassive objects in our own Milky Way and the nearest spiral galaxy: observations of the core regions of galactic nuclei (Sgr A* and M87) performed with unprecedented resolution by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration allow fairly direct tests of the spacetime-metric of the central compact object. In this context we present general-relativistic hydrodynamical simulation results of accretion from an orbiting accretion torus (with a cusp) onto a RN black hole and a RN naked singularity. The results could not be more different for the two cases. For a black hole, just as in the familiar Kerr/Schwarzschild case, matter overflowing the cusp plunges into the black hole horizon. For the naked singularity, the accreting matter forms an inner structure of toroidal topology and leaves the system via powerful outflows. It is an open question whether this inner structure can give rise to an image quantitatively similar to the ones reported by EHT for M87 and Sgr A*.