Details

1. Fluctuating disk

Image of an accretion disk surrounding a non-rotating black hole, seen under an inclination angle of 45°. The disk is subject to fluctuations due to magnetic turbulence. For more detail see this paper, Fig. 2.

2. Rossby-wave disk

Image of an accretion disk surrounding a non-rotating black hole, seen under an inclination angle of 45°. The disk is subject to an instability called Rossby-Wave instability. For more detail see this paper, Fig. 1.

3. Slender torus

Image of an oscillating slender torus surrounding a non-rotating black hole, seen under an inclination angle of 85°. For more detail see this paper, Fig. 1.

4. Thick torus around a black hole at Sgr A*

Image at a wavelength of 1.3 mm of a thick torus surrounding Sgr A* described as a rotating black hole (mass M=4.3 millions solar mass, spin a=0.9M), emitting thermal synchrotron radiation, seen under an inclination angle of 85°. For more detail see this paper, Fig. 1 (top-left panel).

5. Thick torus around a boson star at Sgr A*

Same setup as image 4., except that the torus surrounds a rotating boson star with the same spin parameter. A boson star is an assembly of spin-0 bosons (like the Higgs boson) that behaves like a macroscopic quantum body. It has no hard surface, no event horizon, no central singularity. For more detail see this paper, Fig. 5 (middle-right panel).

6. Thick torus around a naked wormhole at Sgr A*

Same setup as image 4., except that the torus surrounds a naked rotating wormhole with the same spin parameter. This spacetime has no event horizon, no central singularity, and connects two asymptotically flat regions connected by the (traversable) wormhole throat. For more detail see this paper, Fig. 5 (middle-right panel).

7. Aberration effects at 0.9 c (movie)

The object is a non-rotating thin disk bearing a chessboard pattern, around a Schwarzschild black-hole. The disk extends from r=0 to r=28 in geometrical units, is not rotating and j_ν(ν) is constant. The observer sits 5° above the outer edge of the disk. At each frame of this movie, the velocity of the observer increases in the orthoradial direction, from 0 to 99% of the speed of light. The camera is directed at 45° between the direction of the black-hole and the direction of the observer's velocity vector. The image is one frame of the movie, when the observer moves at about 90% of the speed of light. At this velocity, light aberration pulls the image of everything (including the black hole) in front of the moving observer. This movie can be re-created with gyoto mk-video --func=accelerating_tangential_screen --output=file.avi ....

8. Camera orbiting the black hole, looking down (movie)

The object is the same as peviously. The camera follows a geodesic in an inclined, eccentric orbit. The camera is always pointed in the direction of the black hole (i.e. in the direction of decreasing r). This movie takes into account the effects due to the velocity of the observer (including aberration, beaming etc.) and the frame rate is constant in proper time, not in coordinate time. This movie can be re-created with gyoto mk-video --func=orbiting_screen --output=file.avi ....

9. Camera orbiting the black hole, looking forward (movie)

The object is the same as peviously. The camera follows a geodesic skimming the disk in an eccentric orbit. The camera is always pointed in the direction of motion. The field-of-view is 90° in the horizontal direction. This movie can be re-created in Python 3 with

from gyoto import core, std, metric, util, animate
import numpy

ks=metric.Generic('KerrKS')

sc=animate.defaultScenery()
sc.metric(ks)
scr=sc.screen()
scr.observerKind('FullySpecified')

traj=std.Star()
traj.metric(ks)
coord=numpy.asarray([0, 20, 0, 4., 1., 0, 0.16965088, 0.]); t1=406.7094
coord[4:]*=ks.SysPrimeToTdot(coord[:4], coord[5:])
traj.initCoord(coord)

func=animate.orbiting_screen_forward(trajectory=traj, t1=t1, roll=-90)

animate.mk_video(output="forward_ks_skimming_fullhd.avi",
                 width=1920, height=1080, fps=25, scenery=sc, func=func,
                 fov=90)
    

10. Growing black hole (movie)

The object is the same as peviously. The camera is 5° above the outer edge of the disk. In this movie, the mass of the black-hole is initially negligible (the initial outer radius is actually several thousand) and grows until it's horizon is just about to swallow the observer. This movie can be re-created with gyoto mk-video --func=growing_mass --output=file.avi ....

11. Growing Kerr black hole (movie)

Same as above except the black hole is spinning at a=0.95. This movie can be re-created in Python 3 with:

      import gyoto.animate
      sc=gyoto.animate.defaultScenery()
      sc.metric().set('Spin', 0.95)
      gyoto.animate.mk_video(output='growing_mass_spin095_fullhd.avi',
                             func='growing_mass', scenery=sc,
                             width=1920, height=1080, fps=25, nthreads=16, scenery=sc)