Horizon-scale images of black holes (BHs) and their shadows have opened an unprecedented window onto tests of gravity and fundamental physics in the strong-field regime. We consider a wide range of well-motivated deviations from classical general relativity (GR) BH solutions, and constrain them using the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) observations of Sagittarius A ∗ (Sgr A ∗ ), connecting the size of the bright ring of emission to that of the underlying BH shadow and exploiting high-precision measurements of Sgr A ∗ ’s mass-to-distance ratio. The scenarios we consider, and whose fundamental parameters we constrain, include various regular BHs, string-inspired space-times, violations of the no-hair theorem driven by additional fields, alternative theories of gravity, novel fundamental physics frameworks, and BH mimickers including well-motivated wormhole and naked singularity space-times. We demonstrate that the EHT image of Sgr A ∗ places particularly stringent constraints on models predicting a shadow size larger than that of a Schwarzschild BH of a given mass, with the resulting limits in some cases surpassing cosmological ones. Our results are among the first tests of fundamental physics from the shadow of Sgr A ∗ and, while the latter appears to be in excellent agreement with the predictions of GR, we have shown that a number of well-motivated alternative scenarios, including BH mimickers, are far from being ruled out at present.

It is generally believed that the shadows of either a black hole or naked singularity arise due to photon spheres developing in these spacetimes. Here we propose a new spherically symmetric naked singularity spacetime which has no photon sphere, and we show that the singularity casts a shadow in the absence of the photon sphere. We discuss some novel features of this shadow and the lightlike geodesics in this spacetime. We compare the shadow of the naked singularity here with shadows cast by Schwarzschild black hole and the first type of Joshi-Malafarina-Narayan (JMN1) naked singularity, where for the last two spacetimes the shadow is formed due to the presence of a photon sphere. It is seen, in particular, that the size of shadow of the singularity is considerably smaller than that of a black hole. Our analysis shows that the shadow of this naked singularity is distinguishable from the shadow of a Schwarzschild black hole and the JMN1 naked singularity. These results are useful and important in the context of recent observations of shadow of the M87 Galactic center.

We compare the optical appearance of a thin accretion disk in the Simpson-Visser spacetime to the Schwarzschild black hole case in this paper. We calculate and illustrate the redshift and observed flux distributions as viewed by distant observers at various inclination angles. Simpson-Visser family of metrics creates Novikov-Thorne (NT) accretion disks images that nearly look like a Schwarzschild black hole’s NT accretion disk. We have studied also the embedding diagram, the electromagnetic properties of the accretion disk such as the temperature and the radiation flux of the energy by the accretion disk and the accretion efficiency. Compared to the Schwarzschild black hole, we find that the temperature, radiation flux of the energy, and the luminosity of the accretion disk increase by increasing the regularization parameter $l$. We conclude that, based on astrophysical observational signatures in the properties of the electromagnetic spectrum, we can distinguish the wormhole geometries from the regular black holes (black-bounce) and the Schwarzschild black hole.

In this paper, we derive the solutions of orbit equations for a class of naked singularity spacetimes and compare these with timelike orbits, that is, particle trajectories in the Schwarzschild black hole spacetime. We find and compare the perihelion precession of particle orbits in the naked singularity spacetimes with that of a Schwarzschild black hole. We then discuss different distinguishable physical properties of timelike orbits in the black hole and naked singularity geometries, and implications are discussed. Several interesting differences emerge from our results, including the conclusion that in naked singularity spacetimes particle bound orbits can precess in the opposite direction of particle motion, which is not possible in Schwarzschild spacetime. Such reverse precession and other distinctions may help distinguish a naked singularity from a black hole observationally.

It is now known that the shadow is not only the property of a black hole, it can also be cast by other compact objects like naked singularities. However, there exist some novel features of the shadow of the naked singularities which are elaborately discussed in some recent articles. In the earlier literature, it is also shown that a naked singularity may admit negative precession of bound timelike orbits which cannot be seen in Schwarzschild and Kerr black hole spacetimes. This distinguishable behavior of timelike bound orbit in the presence of the naked singularity along with the novel features of the shadow may be useful to distinguish between a black hole and a naked singularity observationally. However, in this paper, it is shown that deformed Kerr spacetime can allow negative precession of bound timelike orbits, when the central singularity of that spacetime is naked. We also show that negative precession and shadow both can exist simultaneously in deformed Kerr naked singularity spacetime. Therefore, any observational evidence of negative precession of bound orbits, along with the central shadow may indicate the presence of a deformed Kerr naked singularity.

Astrometric observations of S-stars provide a unique opportunity to probe the nature of Sagittarius-A* (Sgr-A*). In view of this, it has become important to understand the nature and behavior of timelike bound trajectories of particles around a massive central object. It is known now that whereas the Schwarzschild black hole does not allow the negative precession for the S-stars, the naked singularity spacetimes can admit the positive as well as negative precession for the bound timelike orbits. In this context, we study the perihelion precession of a test particle in the Kerr spacetime geometry. Considering some approximations, we investigate whether the timelike bound orbits of a test particle in Kerr spacetime can have negative precession. In this paper, we only consider low eccentric timelike equatorial orbits. With these considerations, we find that in Kerr spacetimes, negative precession of timelike bound orbits is not allowed.