Asymptotically flat, parametrized black hole metric preserving Kerr symmetries

Abstract

Recently the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration, with very-long baseline interferometric observations, resolved structure at the scale of $\sim5$ Schwarzschild radii about the center of M87$^*$, the supermassive black hole resident at the center of Messier 87. This important observation has paved the way for testing what is known as the "no-hair" theorem, stating that isolated black holes are described by the Kerr metric, parameterized only by their mass and spin. Generic, parameterized spacetimes beyond Kerr allow one to arbitrarily test the no-hair theorem for deviations from the Kerr result with no prior theoretical knowledge or motivation. In this paper, we present such a new general, stationary, axisymmetric and asymptotically flat black hole solution with separable geodesic equations (thus preserving symmetries of a Kerr black hole), extending the previous work of Johannsen. In this new metric, five free non-linear functions parameterically deviate from the Kerr result, allowing one to effectively transform to many alternative black hole solutions present in the literature. We then derive analytic expressions for the Keplerian and epicyclic frequencies, the orbital energy and angular momentum, and the location of the innermost stable orbit of circular equatorial particle orbits. We also compute the image of the photon rings in the new spacetime, which correspond to the boundary of the black hole shadow image taken by the Event Horizon Telescope. We finally compare each quantity for the Kerr result against various parameterizations of the metric, finding that, especially for highly rotating black holes, the two solutions disagree significantly. Such a metric parameterization allows one to perform the no-hair tests in a model-independent way, and finally map constraints to specific alternative theories of gravity.