To see the invisible: Image of the event horizon within the black hole shadow

Abstract

How the supermassive black hole SgrA* in the Milky Way Center looks like for a distant observer? It depends on the black hole highlighting by the surrounding hot matter. The black hole shadow (the photon capture cross-section) would be viewed if there is a stationary luminous background. The black hole event horizon is invisible directly (per se). Nevertheless, a more compact (with respect to black hole shadow) projection of the black hole event horizon on the celestial sphere may be reconstructed by detecting the highly redshifted photons emitted by the nonstationary luminous matter plunging into the black hole and approaching the event horizon. It is appropriate to call this reconstructed projection of the event horizon on the celestial sphere for a distant observer as the “lensed event horizon image”, or simply the “event horizon image”. This event horizon image is placed on the celestial sphere within the position of black hole shadow. Amazingly, the event horizon image is a gravitationally lensed projection on the celestial sphere of the whole surface of the event horizon globe. As a result, the black holes may be viewed at once from both the front and back sides. The lensed event horizon image may be considered as a genuine silhouette of the black hole. For example, a dark northern hemisphere of the event horizon image is the simplest model for a black hole silhouette in the presence of a thin accretion disk.