Photon boomerang in a nearly extreme Kerr metric

DOI10.1088/1361-6382/AC36E5MaRDI QIDQ5090230zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Don N. Page

Publication date 18 July 2022

Published in Classical and Quantum Gravity (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/2106.13262

zbMATH Keywords

black holeKerr metricrotationnull geodesicdragging of inertial framesphoton orbit

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Quantum optics (81V80) Rotation numbers and vectors (37E45) Geodesics in global differential geometry (53C22) Gravitational energy and conservation laws; groups of motions (83C40) Black holes (83C57) Orbital mechanics (70M20) Vector fields, frame fields in differential topology (57R25)

Abstract: The Kerr rotating black hole metric has unstable photon orbits that orbit around the hole at fixed values of the Boyer-Lindquist coordinate $r$ that depend on the axial angular momentum of the orbit, as well as on the parameters of the hole. For zero orbital axial angular momentum, these orbits cross the rotational axes at a fixed value of $r$ that depends on the mass $M$ and angular momentum $J$ of the black hole. Nonzero angular momentum of the hole causes the photon orbit to rotate so that its direction when crossing the north polar axis changes from one crossing to the next by an angle I shall call $Deltaphi$, which depends on the black hole dimensionless rotation parameter $a/M=cJ/(G{M}^2)$ by an equation involving a complete elliptic integral of the first kind. When the black hole has $a/Mapprox0.994,341,179,923,26$, which is nearly maximally rotating, a photon sent out in a constant-$r$ direction from the north polar axis at $rapprox2.423,776,210,035,73,GM/c^2$ returns to the north polar axis in precisely the opposite direction (in a frame nonrotating with respect to the distant stars), a photon boomerang.

Recommendations

• Using the uncharged Kerr black hole as a gravitational mirror
• Spherical null geodesics of rotating Kerr black holes
• Spherical photon orbits around a Kerr black hole
• Lux in obscuro: photon orbits of extremal black holes revisited
• Kerr black hole as a gravitational lens

Cites work

• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 3806475 (Why is no real title available?)
• Analytical solutions of bound timelike geodesic orbits in Kerr spacetime
• Black holes. The membrane paradigm
• Celestial mechanics in Kerr spacetime
• Geodesics in black hole space-times
• Global Structure of the Kerr Family of Gravitational Fields
• Gravitational Field of a Spinning Mass as an Example of Algebraically Special Metrics
• Maximal Analytic Extension of the Kerr Metric
• Particle motion near high-spin black holes
• Spherical null geodesics of rotating Kerr black holes
• Spherical orbits around a Kerr black hole
• Spherical photon orbits around a Kerr black hole

Cited in

(2)

• Spherical null geodesics of rotating Kerr black holes
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 894775 (Why is no real title available?)

This page was built for publication: Photon boomerang in a nearly extreme Kerr metric

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q5090230)