A comparison between the deflection angles of massive and massless particles in the Schwarzschild space-time and their consequences on black hole shadows

Abstract

In this paper, we present comparisons of the deflection angles of massless and massive particles in the Schwarzschild space-time. For the case of photons in a general static space-time, we construct a spatial 3D equation of motion for their path that leads to an implicit formula for the deflection angle. We then compare our results with well-known results of the literature in the Schwarzschild space-time. For the case of massive particles, we calculate the deflection angle only in the Schwarzschild space-time. The end result is that as the velocity of any massive particle diminishes, the deflection angle increases. To show the relevance of these comparisons, we constructed different black hole shadows for massive particles in order to be compared with a shadow made by photons.