Plasma effects on gravitational lensing and shadow observables of a Kerr-like black hole in a dark matter halo

Abstract

Plasma surrounding a black hole modifies light propagation and can alter the observed shadow, potentially affecting the interpretation of Event Horizon Telescope data. We study the effects of dark matter and nonmagnetized pressureless plasma on the shadow of a Kerr-like black hole by analyzing null geodesics in both homogeneous and inhomogeneous plasma distributions. For the homogeneous plasma profile, the asymptotic Bardeen coordinates acquire a refractive normalization factor arising from the leading-order coupling between the metric function $Δ(r)$ and the radial plasma function $f_r(r)\propto r^2$. We show that increasing the black hole spin generally enlarges the shadow radius and increases its deformation, while moving the observer away from the equatorial plane decreases both quantities. For the parameter ranges considered, astrophysically reasonable dark matter densities in this model do not produce appreciable changes in the photon trajectories. Plasma effects, however, are significant: increasing the plasma density increases the shadow radius and deformation for homogeneous plasma, but decreases them for inhomogeneous plasma. The energy emission rate likewise depends strongly on the plasma model, with homogeneous plasma producing a substantially larger rate as the plasma strength increases. As an illustrative benchmark, we compare the resulting geometric critical-curve sizes with EHT-inferred shadow-size intervals for M87* and Sgr A*.