Photon boomerang in a nearly extreme Kerr metric

DOI10.1088/1361-6382/AC36E5zbMATH Open1498.83032arXiv2106.13262OpenAlexW3214674074MaRDI QIDQ5090230FDOQ5090230

Authors: Don N. Page 

Publication date: 18 July 2022

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

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.

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

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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)

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Cited In (2)

• Title not available (Why is that?)
• Spherical null geodesics of rotating Kerr black holes

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