Pith. sign in

REVIEW 8 cited by

Testing the rotational nature of the supermassive object M87* from the circularity and size of its first image

Not yet reviewed by Pith; the record is open.

This paper has not been read by Pith yet. Machine review is queued; the pith claim, tier, and objections will appear here once it completes.

SPECIMEN: schema-true, not a live event

T0 review · schema-true

One-sentence machine reading of the paper's core claim.

pith:XXXXXXXX · record.json · timestamp

arxiv 1904.12983 v2 pith:EW2EYIS7 submitted 2019-04-29 gr-qc astro-ph.HE

classification gr-qcastro-ph.HE
keywords kerrobjectcircularityfirstsizeangleconsiderfind
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal
0 comments
abstract

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration has recently released the first image of a black hole (BH), opening a new window onto tests of general relativity in the strong field regime. In this paper, we derive constraints on the nature of M87* (the supermassive object at the centre of the galaxy M87), exploiting the fact that its shadow appears to be highly circular, and using measurements of its angular size. We first consider the simple case where M87* is assumed to be a Kerr BH. We find that the inferred circularity of M87* excludes Kerr BHs with observation angle $\theta_{\rm obs} \gtrsim 45^{\circ}$ for dimensionless rotational parameter $0.95 \lesssim a_* \leq 1$ whereas the observation angle is unbounded for $a_* \lesssim 0.9$. We then consider the possibility that M87* might be a superspinar, i.e. an object described by the Kerr solution and spinning so fast that it violates the Kerr bound by having $|a_*| > 1$. We find that, within certain regions of parameter space, the inferred circularity and size of the shadow of M87* do not exclude the possibility that this object might be a superspinar.

Discussion (0). Continue with ORCID to comment.

Forward citations

Cited by 8 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score. Full citation record

  1. Kerr black holes without primary hairs

    gr-qc 2026-07 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    Explicit infinite family of axisymmetric black holes with a Kerr exterior, a regular or mildly singular interior controlled by free exponents n_i, and no additional asymptotic charges.

  2. Evaporating cosmologically coupled black holes

    astro-ph.CO 2026-07 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    If a black hole's mass grows with cosmic expansion, Hawking evaporation is slowed or reversed, weakening gamma-ray bounds on primordial black holes.

  3. A Universal Framework for Horizon-Scale Tests of Gravity with Black Hole Shadows

    gr-qc 2025-11 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    An adaptive ray-tracing and MCMC framework estimates shadow observables for arbitrary stationary metrics; applied to the Kerr–Bertotti–Robinson spacetime it yields an Sgr A* horizon-scale magnetic field of about 93 G ...

  4. Shadow constraints of charged black hole with scalar hair and gravitational waves from extreme mass ratio inspirals

    gr-qc 2025-06 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

    EHT shadow data constrain the EMCS black hole charge and scalar hair to about 0.1 and 0.01 levels, while LISA EMRI waveforms could reach 0.01 and 0.0001 levels.

  5. Strong gravitational lensing by black hole in F(R) Euler Heisenberg Gravity's Rainbow

    astro-ph.GA 2025-07 conditional novelty 4.0 of 10

    Applying the strong deflection limit to the F(R)-Euler-Heisenberg-Rainbow black hole gives lensing observables that increase with the Euler-Heisenberg parameter and decrease with charge.

  6. Thermodynamics and Shadows of Kerr black holes endowed with a global monopole charge

    gr-qc 2025-06 reject novelty 4.0 of 10

    The authors derive shadow and thermodynamic quantities for a Kerr-like metric with a global monopole term in Δ, and claim EHT observations constrain the monopole charge α.

  7. Signatures of modified gravity from the gravitational Aharonov-Bohm effect

    gr-qc 2025-02 reject novelty 4.0 of 10

    For a Kaluza-Klein modified gravitational potential, the gravitational Aharonov-Bohm phase produces energy-level shifts that are dominated by an assumed constant correction to Newton's constant, while the claimed new ...

  8. Black Holes Thermodynamics and Generalised Non-Extensive Entropy

    gr-qc 2025-02 conditional novelty 4.0 of 10

    For Schwarzschild black holes, generalized non-extensive entropies such as Rényi, Tsallis, and four- and five-parameter forms cannot reproduce both the Hawking temperature and the ADM mass; only the Bekenstein-Hawking...

Pith tools