Visual Distortions Near a Neutron Star and Black Hole

Abstract

The visual distortion effects visible to an observer traveling around and descending to the surface of an extremely compact star are described. Specifically, trips to a ``normal" neutron star, a black hole, and an ultracompact neutron star with extremely high surface gravity, are described. Concepts such as multiple imaging, red- and blue-shifting, conservation of surface brightness, the photon sphere, and the existence of multiple Einstein rings are discussed in terms of what the viewer would see. Computer generated, general relativistically accurate illustrations highlighting the distortion effects are presented and discussed. A short movie (VHS) depicting many of these effects is available to those interested free of charge.

23 pages, Plain TeX (v. 3.0), figures in American Journal of Physics, 61, 619, 1993, video available upon written (hard copy) request only

Cited by in corpus (69)

• Time delay and magnification centroid due to gravitational lensing by black holes and naked singularities
• Gravitational Lensing by Black Holes
• Shadow of a rotating braneworld black hole
• Null geodesics and shadow of a rotating black hole in extended Chern-Simons modified gravity
• Shadow of five-dimensional rotating Myers-Perry black hole
• Shadow of a Kaluza-Klein rotating dilaton black hole
• Quasi-Equatorial Gravitational Lensing by Spinning Black Holes in the Strong Field Limit
• Shadow of Kerr-Taub-NUT black hole
• Strong deflection limit analysis and gravitational lensing of an Ellis wormhole
• Analytic Kerr black hole lensing for equatorial observers in the strong deflection limit
• Deflection angle in the strong deflection limit in a general asymptotically flat, static, spherically symmetric spacetime
• A comparison of approximate gravitational lens equations and a proposal for an improved new one
• Time Delay in Black Hole Gravitational Lensing as a Distance Estimator
• Strong deflection limit of black hole gravitational lensing with arbitrary source distances
• Gravitational lensing by Einstein-Born-Infeld black holes
• Gravitational lensing by a regular black hole
• Braneworld black hole gravitational lens: Strong field limit analysis
• Gravitational Lensing by Rotating Naked Singularities
• Gravitational lensing in the Simpson-Visser black-bounce spacetime in a strong deflection limit
• Light curves of light rays passing through a wormhole
• Shadow cast by rotating braneworld black holes with a cosmological constant
• Strong gravitational lensing of a 4-dimensional Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet black hole in homogeneous plasma
• Strong deflection gravitational lensing by a modified Hayward black hole
• Gravitational Lensing by Black Holes: a comprehensive treatment and the case of the star S2
• Weak and strong deflection gravitational lensings by a charged Horndeski black hole
• Strong field gravitational lensing in scalar tensor theories
• Gravitational lensing by massless braneworld black holes
• Boson Stars as Gravitational Lenses
• Spherical null geodesics of rotating Kerr black holes
• Regular phantom black hole gravitational lensing
• Retrolensing by a charged black hole
• Retrolensing by a wormhole at deflection angles $\pi$ and $3\pi$
• Shadows of black hole surrounded by anisotropic fluid in Rastall theory
• Retrolensing by two photon spheres of a black-bounce spacetime
• Strong gravitational field time delay for photons coupled to Weyl tensor in a Schwarzschild black hole
• The weakly perturbed Schwarzschild lens in the strong deflection limit
• Gravitational Lensing Characteristics of the Transparent Sun
• Gravitational time delay effects by Kerr and Kerr-Newman black holes in strong field limits
• Gravitational lensing by a photon sphere in a Reissner-Nordström naked singularity spacetime in strong deflection limits
• Deflection angle of a light ray reflected by a general marginally unstable photon sphere in a strong deflection limit
• Equatorial light bending around Kerr-Newman black holes
• Nonlogarithmic divergence of a deflection angle by a marginally unstable photon sphere of the Damour-Solodukhin wormhole in a strong deflection limit
• Gravitational lensing by a Horndeski black hole
• Detecting neutrinos from black hole neutron stars mergers
• Strong deflection lensing by charged black holes in scalar-tensor gravity
• Gravitational lensing by using the 0th order of affine perturbation series of the deflection angle of a ray near a photon sphere
• Black hole binaries: ergoregions, photon surfaces, wave scattering, and quasinormal modes
• Equatorial and quasi-equatorial gravitational lensing by Kerr black hole pierced by a cosmic string
• Gravitational lensing of transient neutrino sources by black holes
• Spherical Skyrmion black holes as gravitational lenses
• Extreme gravitational lensing in vicinity of Schwarzschild-de Sitter black holes
• Light bending in a two black hole metric
• Analytical Kerr-Sen Dilaton-Axion Black Hole Lensing in the Weak Deflection Limit
• Gravitational lensing by a Bronnikov-Kim wormhole under a weak-field approximation and in a strong deflection limit
• Constraints on the black-hole charges of M87* and Sagittarius A* by changing rates of photon spheres can be relaxed
• Affine perturbation series of the deflection angle of a ray near the photon sphere of a Reissner-Nordström black hole
• On Multiple Einstein Rings
• Strong Gravitational Lensing with Gauss-Bonnet correction
• Retrolensing by light rays slightly inside and outside of a photon sphere around a Reissner-Nordström naked singularity
• Spherical Photon Orbits around a 5D Myers-Perry Black Hole
• Circular light orbits of a general, static, and spherical symmetrical wormhole with $Z_2$ symmetry
• Trapped photons in Schwarzschild-Tangherlini spacetimes
• Strong Lensing Effect and Quasinormal Modes of Oscillations of Black Holes in $\mathbf{f}(\mathbf{R},\mathbf{T})$ Gravity Theory
• Semiclassical Effects in Color Flavor Locked Strange Stars
• Gravitational lensing inside and outside of a marginally unstable photon sphere in a general, static, spherically symmetric, and asymptotically-flat spacetime in strong deflection limits
• Gravitational lensing by two photon spheres in a black-bounce spacetime in strong deflection limits
• Light-ring pairs from $A$-discriminantal varieties
• Kerr black holes as circular polarizers
• Angular Location of the $n^{th}$ Einstein Ring at large $n$