Chaotic Shadows of Black Holes: A Short Review

Abstract

We give a brief review on the formation and the calculation of black hole shadow. Firstly, we introduce the conception of black hole shadow and the current works on a variety of black hole shadows. Secondly, we present main methods of calculating photon sphere radius and shadow radius, and then explain how the photon sphere affect the boundary of black hole shadow. We review the analytical calculation for black hole shadows which have analytic expressions for shadow boundary due to the integrable photon motion system. And we introduce the fundamental photon orbits which can explain the patterns of black hole shadow shape. Finally, we review the numerical calculation of black hole shadows with the backward ray-tracing method, and introduce some chaotic black hole shadows with self-similar fractal structures. Since the gravitational waves from the merger of binary black holes have been detected, we introduce a couple of shadows of binary black holes, which all have the eyebrowlike shadows around the main shadows with the fractal structures. We discuss the invariant phase space structures of photon motion system in black hole space-time, and explain the formation of black hole shadow is dominated by the invariant manifolds of certain Lyapunov orbits near the fixed points.