Abstract
Supermassive black hole (BH) binaries are thought to produce self-lensing flares (SLFs) when the two BHs are aligned with the line of sight. If the binary orbit is observed nearly edge-on, we find a distinct feature in the light curve imprinted by the relativistic shadow around the background (“source”) BH. We study this feature by ray tracing in a binary model and predict that 1% of the current binary candidates could show this feature. Our BH tomography method proposed here could make it possible to extract BH shadows that are spatially unresolvable by high-resolution very long base line interferometry (VLBI).
- Received 27 December 2021
- Accepted 15 March 2022
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.128.191101
© 2022 American Physical Society
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
Viewpoint
Measuring a Black Hole Shadow
Published 9 May 2022
A new technique for measuring the shadows cast by a black hole binary could enable astronomers to glean details about these massive systems.
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