Pith. sign in

REVIEW 14 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

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

classification gr-qc astro-ph.HE
keywords kerrobjectcircularityfirstsizeangleconsiderfind
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal T4 reserved
0 comments
Share X Bluesky LinkedIn Reddit HN
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)

Sign in with ORCID, Apple, or X to comment. Anyone can read and Pith papers without signing in.

Forward citations

Cited by 14 Pith papers

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

  1. Rotating Black Holes with Primary Scalar Hair: Shadow Signatures in Beyond Horndeski Gravity

    gr-qc 2026-02 unverdicted novelty 7.0

    Rotating black holes with primary scalar hair in beyond Horndeski gravity produce shadows whose diameter increases for negative Q and whose distortion increases for positive Q, with EHT bounds on M87* restricting but ...

  2. Kerr black holes without primary hairs

    gr-qc 2026-07 conditional novelty 6.0

    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.

  3. Evaporating cosmologically coupled black holes

    astro-ph.CO 2026-07 conditional novelty 6.0

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

  4. Breaking Parameter Degeneracies in a Magnetically Charged Black Hole Embedded in a Hernquist Dark-Matter Halo: A Multi-Observable Analysis

    gr-qc 2026-04 accept novelty 6.0

    CosmicDancePro integrates multimodal datasets to reveal that solar storms cause significant Starlink orbital decay and network degradation, and explains a 'W'-shaped altitude variation pattern via day-night atmospheri...

  5. Gravity/thermodynamics correspondence via black hole shadows

    gr-qc 2026-04 unverdicted novelty 6.0

    Cuspy black hole shadows correspond to swallowtail thermodynamic free energy, with boundary self-intersections marking geometric phase transitions whose critical exponents fall in the mean-field class.

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

    gr-qc 2025-11 conditional novelty 6.0

    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 ...

  7. $\tt BlackHawk$ $\tt v3.0$: Hawking Radiation from Regular Black Holes

    gr-qc 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 5.0

    BlackHawk v3.0 adds Hawking temperatures and greybody factors for multiple regular black hole metrics to an existing public code via numerical routines.

  8. Breaking Parameter Degeneracies in a Magnetically Charged Black Hole Embedded in a Hernquist Dark-Matter Halo: A Multi-Observable Analysis

    gr-qc 2026-04 unverdicted novelty 5.0

    Computations for a new black hole metric with magnetic charge and Hernquist halo show that charge raises QNM frequencies while the halo lowers them, with similar opposing effects on shadow size and neutrino annihilati...

  9. Regular black hole solutions and the quark chemical potential at the QCD phase transition

    astro-ph.HE 2026-05 unverdicted novelty 4.0

    Within two QCD-inspired equations of state coupled to Eddington-Finkelstein collapse, finite chemical potential reshapes thermodynamics but does not produce self-regularizing black hole cores.

  10. Optical Appearance of the Kerr-Bertotti-Robinson Black Hole with a Magnetically Driven Synchrotron Emissivity Model

    astro-ph.HE 2026-05 unverdicted novelty 4.0

    Kerr-BR black hole images with magnetically coupled synchrotron emissivity show spin- and B-dependent shifts in the inner disk edge, altered lensing rings, and Doppler asymmetries, with retrograde cases displaying wid...

  11. Photon Spheres and shadow of modified black-hole entropies

    gr-qc 2026-05 unverdicted novelty 4.0

    Modified black hole entropies alter photon sphere radii and shadow sizes, with parameters constrained by Event Horizon Telescope observations of Sgr A*.

  12. Photon Spheres and shadow of modified black-hole entropies

    gr-qc 2026-05 unverdicted novelty 4.0

    Corrected black hole entropies produce distinct shifts in photon sphere radius and shadow size that are constrained by Event Horizon Telescope data on Sagittarius A*.

  13. Photon Spheres and shadow of modified black-hole entropies

    gr-qc 2026-05 unverdicted novelty 4.0

    Entropy corrections to black holes produce modified metrics whose photon-sphere and shadow sizes can be constrained by Sgr A* observations.

  14. Probing Kalb-Ramond gravity with charged rotating black holes: constraints from EHT observations

    gr-qc 2026-04 unverdicted novelty 3.0

    EHT shadow observations constrain the Lorentz-violating parameter ℓ in Kalb-Ramond gravity for charged rotating black holes to roughly |ℓ| ≲ 0.1-0.2, with an upper bound ℓ ≲ 0.19 from Sgr A*.