On the Observable Shape of Black Hole Photon Rings

Abstract

Motivated by the prospect of measuring a black hole photon ring, in previous work we explored the interferometric signature produced by a bright, narrow curve in the sky. Interferometric observations of such a curve measure its "projected position function" $\mathbf{r}\cdot \hat{\mathbf{n}}$, where $\mathbf{r}$ parameterizes the curve and $\hat{\mathbf{n}}$ denotes its unit normal vector. In this paper, we show by explicit construction that a curve can be fully reconstructed from its projected position, completing the argument that space interferometry can in principle determine the detailed photon ring shape. In practice, near-term observations may be limited to the visibility amplitude alone, which contains incomplete shape information: for convex curves, the amplitude only encodes the set of projected diameters (or "widths") of the shape. We explore the freedom in reconstructing a convex curve from its widths, giving insight into the shape information probed by technically plausible future astronomical measurements. Finally, we consider the Kerr "critical curve" in this framework and present some new results on its shape. We analytically show that the critical curve is an ellipse at small spin or inclination, while at extremal spin it becomes the convex hull of a Cartesian oval. We find a simple oval shape, the "phoval", which reproduces the critical curve with high fidelity over the whole parameter range.

arXiv comment16 pages, 8 figures

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• Spacetime Measurements with the Photon Ring
• Photon Ring Interferometric Signatures Beyond The Universal Regime
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• Assessing the impact of instrument noise and astrophysical fluctuations on measurements of the first black hole photon ring
• QED Effects on Kerr-Newman Black Hole Shadows
• On emergent conformal symmetry near the photon ring
• Photon ring autocorrelations from gravitational fluctuations around a black hole
• Overlapping of photon rings in black hole imaging
• Hidden conformal symmetries for black holes in modified gravity
• Microlensing Black Hole Shadows
• Classification of radial Kerr geodesic motion
• Observational distinguishability of the Kerr and Kerr-Hayward metrics to EHT
• Decoding a black hole metric from the interferometric pattern of the relativistic images of a compact source
• Orbit design for mitigating interstellar scattering effects in Earth-space VLBI observations of Sgr A*