Constraining spherically symmetric metrics by the gap between photon rings

Gravitational lensing of luminous matter that surrounds a black hole or some other sufficiently compact object produces an infinite sequence of images. Besides the direct (or primary) image, it comprises demagnified and deformed replicas of the original known as photon rings which are progressively nearing the boundary of the socalled shadow. In the present paper, we present analytical approximation formulas for higher-order photon rings for an asymptotically flat, static, spherically symmetric spacetime that admits a photon sphere. We consider a geometrically thin disk of light sources in the equatorial plane and an observer at arbitrary inclination far away from the center. Fixing the emission radius and leveraging the strong deflection limit, which provides an analytical logarithmic approximation for the deflection angle, we find the deformed shape of higher-order photon rings in the form of a polar equation on the observer's screen. It has been suggested by other authors to use the relative size of photon rings for characterizing the underlying spacetime. In particular, the relative separation between two neighboring photon rings, which we call "gap parameter", was considered. We analytically calculate the gap parameter of higher-order photon rings for metrics of the considered class that may depend on multiple parameters. The advantage of using this quantity is in the fact that, to within the assumed approximations, it is independent of the mass of the central object (or of some other characteristic parameter if the mass is zero) and of the distance of the observer. Measurements of the gap parameter, which may become possible in the near future, will restrict the spacetime models that are in agreement with the observations. Even without knowing the inner and outer radii of the shining disk, it will conclusively rule out some metrics. Some examples are provided.