Self-Lensing Flares from Black Hole Binaries: Observing Black Hole Shadows via Light Curve Tomography
Jordy Davelaar, Zoltán Haiman
Abstract
Supermassive black hole (BH) binaries are thought to produce self-lensing flares (SLFs) when the two BHs are aligned with the line of sight. If the binary orbit is observed nearly edge-on, we find a distinct feature in the light curve imprinted by the relativistic shadow around the background ("source") BH. We study this feature by ray tracing in a binary model and predict that 1% of the current binary candidates could show this feature. Our BH tomography method proposed here could make it possible to extract BH shadows that are spatially unresolvable by high-resolution very long base line interferometry (VLBI).
Topics & Concepts
PhysicsAstrophysicsSupermassive black holeLight curveBinary black holeLine-of-sightBlack hole (networking)Binary numberAstronomyVery-long-baseline interferometryGalaxyGravitational waveComputer networkRouting protocolMathematicsArithmeticRouting (electronic design automation)Link-state routing protocolComputer scienceAstrophysical Phenomena and ObservationsPulsars and Gravitational Waves ResearchAstrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena