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The present study investigates the negative energy orbits and energy extraction efficiency using the magnetic Penrose process in various regular black hole geometries surrounded by electromagnetic fields. Utilizing numerical simulations, we analyze the efficiency of this process in Kerr and Simpson-Visser geometries, focusing on extremal black holes. Interestingly, our study demonstrates that the energy extraction efficiency remains indistinguishable between Kerr and Simpson-Visser geometries, regardless of the regularization parameter ($l$); this trend is consistent with previous studies of the Penrose process and superradiance. Additionally, we present results for the rotating Hayward black hole, showing that efficiency is influenced by spin and deviation parameters ($g$), as well as the induced magnetic field and charge of the compact object. Notably, we observe that energy extraction efficiency is highest in the rotating Hayward black hole compared to Kerr and Simpson-Visser geometries, particularly in scenarios where the magnetic field and charge are minimal. Our study highlights the significant role of spin, charge and magnetic field characteristics in maximizing energy extraction efficiency, particularly in the rotating Hayward black hole context., Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures and 2 tables (comments are welcome!)

In this work, we investigate tidal forces in the Lemaitre-Tolman-Bondi (LTB) metric, focusing on both hidden and locally visible singularities. We discuss the strength of these singularities in terms of deformationally strong singularities. Specifically, we analyze tidal forces in LTB spacetime, calculating radial and angular tidal forces and Jacobi fields for the radially co-moving shell. To provide a comparative study, we consider both homogeneous and inhomogeneous cases. The matter field distribution at one-time slice can differ significantly from another, highlighting the potential for time-dependent tidal deformation as a distinct observational signature. We focus on a specific feature: the time-varying maximum of stretching in the radial tidal force, which we term the "critical tidal boundary." In the inhomogeneous case, close to singularity time ($t

Near-solar mass black holes (BHs) could have been involved in the two recent gravitational wave events, GW190425 and GW190814. Since such a low mass BH cannot be formed via stellar evolution, a model has been proposed based on the core collapse of a neutron star initiated by a certain number of dark matter (DM) particles. In this process, the accumulated DM particles collapse to form a tiny BH inside the neutron star, and the entire neutron star is transmuted into a BH after a certain time due to the accretion of matter by the endoparasitic BH from its host. Here, we argue that, depending on the initial conditions, a dark core collapse could give rise to either a BH or a naked singularity. For example, if the accumulated cloud of DM particles in the core of a neutron star can be modeled as an anisotropic fluid and it fulfils the criterion for collapse, an endoparasitic naked singularity could form instead of an endoparasitic BH. Immediately after its formation, the naked singularity should begin accreting matter from the host neutron star, thus eventually transmuting the entire host into a near-solar mass, relatively slowly-spinning naked singularity. We also propose a general technique to constrain the DM particle--neutron scattering cross section using the lack of pulsars near the Galactic centre and assuming that these missing pulsars have already been transmuted into BHs and/or naked singularities. Thus, the missing pulsars also indicate the existence of many such singularities near the Galactic center., Comment: 20 pages, 8 figures, matches published version

The upcoming discoveries of pulsars orbiting the center of the Milky Way will present unparalleled opportunities to examine the causal structure of the spacetime geometry of Sagittarius A*. In this paper, we investigate the fully relativistic propagation time delay of pulsar signals in the Joshi-Malafarina-Narayan (JMN-1) and Janis-Newman-Winicour (JNW) spacetimes. This delay arises basically from the spacetime curvatures in the vicinity of these ultra-compact objects, induced by the intense gravitational field near the Galactic Center (GC). Using the principles of gravitational lensing, we compute the arrival time of photons originating from a pulsar in orbit around the GC. To validate our approach, we compare our time delay analysis of the Schwarzschild black hole with the corresponding delay in the post-Newtonian framework. Subsequently, we find that the propagation time of pulsar signal is greater and lesser for the given horizon-less ultra-compact objects for direct and indirect propagation respectively. Therefore, our results suggest quite significant propagation time delay differences in JMN-1 and JNW spacetimes, when compared to the Schwarzschild black hole case. This can be inferred as a possible distinguishing feature for these ultra-compact objects' geometries., Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures

This paper explores the cosmological implications of a scalar field with a specific potential, crucial for achieving the final equilibrium state of gravitational collapse. We consider a system with two fluids: minimally coupled matter representing dust-like dark matter and a scalar field acting as dark energy. Our model, akin to the top-hat collapse model, focuses on isolated over-dense regions within a closed FLRW metric, while the background follows a flat FLRW metric. We analyze spacetime configurations where these regions undergo initial expansion followed by contraction, deriving the scalar field potential responsible for their equilibrium state. Our fully relativistic approach offers a comprehensive understanding of stable cosmic over-dense regions, without the need for ad-hoc Newtonian virialization., Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2308.03603

A spacetime singularity, identified by the existence of incomplete causal geodesics in the spacetime, is called a (Tipler) strong curvature singularity if the volume form acting on independent Jacobi fields along causal geodesics vanishes in the approach of the singularity. It is called naked if at least one of these causal geodesics is past incomplete. Here, we study the formation of strong curvature naked singularities arising from spherically symmetric gravitational collapse of general type-I matter fields in an arbitrarily finite number of dimensions. In the spirit of Joshi and Dwivedi [26], and Goswami and Joshi [31], we first construct regular initial data in terms of matter variables and geometric quantities, subject to the dominant and null energy conditions. Using this initial data, we derive two distinct (but not mutually exclusive) conditions, which we call the positive root condition (PRC) and the simple positive root condition (SPRC), that serve as necessary and sufficient conditions, respectively, for the existence of naked singularities. In doing so, we generalize the results of [26] and [31]. We further restrict the PRC and the SPRC by imposing the curvature growth condition (CGC) of Clarke and Krolak [24] on all causal curves that satisfy the causal convergence condition. The CGC gives a sufficient condition for the naked singularities implying the PRC and implied by the SPRC, to be of strong curvature type; thereby also implying the inextendibility of the spacetime. Using the CGC, we extend the results of [28] (that hold for dimension $N=4$) to the case $N=5$, showing that strong curvature naked singularities can occur in this case. However, for the case $N\geq6$, we show that past-incomplete causal curves that identify naked singularities do not satisfy the CGC. These results shed light on the validity of the cosmic censorship conjectures in arbitrary dimensions., Comment: Final version (accepted in Class. Quant. Grav.)

In this article, we investigate the gravitational field of a charged, non-vacuum, non-rotating, spherically symmetric body of mass $M$ assuming a static solution to the Einstein-Maxwell field equations. We demonstrate that the characteristics of perihelion precession of orbits in Schwarzschild and Null singularity spacetimes are similar, whereas, in the case of charged naked singularity (CNS) spacetime, the characteristics are the opposite of those in Schwarzschild and Null singularity spacetime. Here we discuss some novel features of the timelike and lightlike geodesics in this spacetime. We also discuss the comparative study of tidal force in the null singularity spacetime and charged naked singularity spacetime., Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures

Primordial black hole formation has been discussed widely, when density perturbations in the early universe cause matter to collapse gravitationally, giving rise to these ultra-compact objects. We propose that such a gravitational collapse also gives rise to primordial naked singularities, that would play an important role in the observable features of present universe. We consider two types of collapse scenarios that give rise to event-like and object-like visible singularities within a cosmological background. We briefly discuss implications of primordial naked singularities, including those for dark matter, vis-a-vis primordial black holes., Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, revised version

The importance and significance of magnetic fields in the astrophysical scenario is well known. Many domains of astrophysical black hole physics such as polarized shadow image, high energy emitting processes and jet formation are dependent on the behavior of the magnetic fields in the vicinity of the compact objects. In light of this, we determine the master equation and master differential equation that determine the spatial behavior of the magnetic field inside a matter distribution or vacuum region, of general spherically symmetric metric, which is immersed in a test magnetic field. We also investigate here the case of JMN-1 singularity immersed in a uniform weak magnetic field and determine the behavior of magnetic fields by defining electromagnetic four potential vector. We find that the tangential component of the magnetic field is discontinuous at the matching surface of the JMN-1 singularity with the external Schwarzschild metric, resulting in surface currents. We define the covariant expression of surface current density in this scenario. We also analyze the behavior of center-of-mass energy of two oppositely charged particles in the geometry of the magnetized JMN-1 singularity. We briefly discuss the possible scenarios which would possess a discontinuous magnetic field and implications of the same and future possibilities in the realm of astrophysics are indicated., Comment: 12 pages, 3 compound figures, sections added

In the case of unhindered gravitational collapse of matter cloud governed by the Lemaitre-Tolman-Bondi (LTB) spacetime, the end-state singularity is either locally visible, globally visible or completely hidden. We have a past-null singularity in the first two cases while a future-spacelike singularity in the last case. Here, we show an example of a gravitational collapse model whose end-state is a future-null-singularity (it has a causal property that is unlike the cases involving LTB spacetime). We depict such a distinct causal structure of the singularity by conformal diagrams., Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures

The pursuit of unraveling the true essence of dark energy has become an immensely captivating endeavor in modern cosmology. Alongside the conventional cosmological constant approach, a diverse range of ideas has been proposed, encompassing scalar field-based models and various modified gravity approaches. A particularly intriguing notion involves exploring scalar field dark energy models within quantum gravitationally motivated cosmologies, with non-canonical theories standing out as a prominent candidate in this context. Hence, in this work, we investigate three widely recognized non-canonical scalar field dark energy models: phantom, quintom, and DBI dark energy models. By employing the Goriely-Hyde procedure, we demonstrate the presence of singularities in both finite and infinite time within these frameworks. and that these singularities can manifest regardless of the system's initial conditions. Moreover, we further establish how cosmological singularities of types I-IV can arise in all of these models. The work goes to show that non-canonical regimes for dark energy can allow for most of the prominent cosmological singularities for a variety of models., Comment: v2, matches the accepted version in PDU, 28 pages with no figures

Recent Event Horizon Telescope observations of M87* and Sgr A* strongly suggests the presence of supermassive black hole at their respective cores. In this work, we use the semi-analytic Radiatively Inefficient Accretion Flows (RIAF) model to investigate the resulting images of Joshi-Malafarina-Narayan (JMN-1) naked singularity and the Schwarzschild BH. We aim at choosing the JMN-1 naked singularity model and compare the synchrotron images with the Schwarzschild solution to search any distinct features which can distinguish the two objects and find alternative to the black hole solution. We perform general relativistic ray-tracing and radiative transfer simulations using Brahma code to generate synchrotron emission images utilising thermal distribution function for emissivity and absorptivity. We investigate effects in the images by varying inclination angle, disk width and frequency. The shadow images simulated by the JMN-1 model closely resemble those generated by the Schwarzschild black hole. When we compare these images, we find that the disparities between them are minimal. We conduct simulations using various plasma parameters, but the resulting images remain largely consistent for both scenarios. This similarity is evident in the horizontal cross-sectional brightness profiles of the two instances. Notably, the JMN-1 model exhibits slightly higher intensity in comparison to the Schwarzschild black hole. We conclude that JMN-1 presents itself as a viable substitute for the black hole scenario. This conclusion is not solely grounded in the fact that they are indistinguishable from their respective shadow observations, but also in the consideration that JMN-1 emerges as an end state of a continual gravitational collapse. This paradigm not only allows for constraints on spacetime but also provides a good probe for the nature of the central compact object., Comment: Accepted in A&A, 7 pages, 6 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2202.00588

We study the model of spherically symmetric and spatially homogeneous gravitational collapse of a minimally coupled scalar field. Our study focuses on obtaining the scalar field potential that leads to a final equilibrium state in the gravitational collapse. We demonstrate the existence of a class of scalar field solutions that can indeed result in such an end equilibrium state., Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure

Recently there has been an interest in exploring black holes that are regular in the sense that the central curvature singularity is avoided. Here, we depict a method to obtain a regular black hole (RBH) spacetime $(\mathcal{M}, \Tilde{g})$ from the unhindered gravitational collapse from regular initial data of a spherically symmetric perfect fluid $(\mathcal{M}, g)$. In other words, we obtain the equilibrium metric $\Tilde g$ as a limiting case of the time-evolving metric $g$. In the spirit of Joshi, Malafarina and Narayan (\textit{Class. Quantum Grav. 31, 015002, 2014}), our description of gravitational collapse is implicit in nature in the sense that we do not describe the data at each time-slice. Rather, we impose a condition in terms of geometric and matter variables for the collapse to have an end-state that is devoid of incomplete geodesics but admits a marginally trapped surface (MTS). The admission of MTS causally disconnects two mutually exclusive regions $\Hat{\mathcal{M}}_1$ and $\Hat{\mathcal{M}}_2\subset \mathcal{M}$ in the sense that $\forall~p\in\Hat{\mathcal{M}_2}$, the causal past of $p$ does not intersect $\Hat{\mathcal{M}}_1$. While the classic Oppenheimer-Snyder collapse model necessarily produces a black hole with a Schwarzschild singularity at the centre, we show here that there are classes of regular initial conditions for which the collapse gives rise to a RBH.

The concept of regular black holes has gained attention in recent years, especially in the context of quantum gravity theories. In these theories, the existence of singularities is paradoxical as they represent a breakdown of the laws of physics. Motivated by the recent developments in this area, we study the tidal force effects in one such family of regular geometries described by the Simpson-Visser metric. We find the radial and angular force profiles for a radially in-falling particle in this spacetime and calculate the variation of the geodesic separation vector with the radial coordinate using two different initial conditions. These results are then compared with that of Schwarzschild black hole spacetime. We show that for a regular black hole, both radial and angular tidal forces show a peak outside the horizon and then fall to ultimately switch their behavior from stretching to compression and vice-versa. Also, they are finite at $r=0$ unlike the Schwarzschild spacetime. It is also seen that the angular deviation profile shows an oscillating behavior for a particular initial condition. Our analysis can be used to distinguish between regular black hole, one-way and two-way wormholes and a singular black hole spacetimes., Comment: 12 pages, 17 figures

We discuss the equilibrium conditions of the gravitational collapse of a spherically symmetric matter cloud. We analyze the spinor structure of a general collapsing space-time and redefine the equilibrium conditions by using Cartan scalars. We qualitatively investigate the equilibrium configuration of a two-fluid system consisting of a dust-like fluid and a fluid with a negative equation of state. We use our results to investigate certain cosmological scenarios where dark energy can cluster inside the over-dense regions of dark matter and together reaches a stable configuration. We compare the outcomes of our work with existing work where the virialization technique is used to stabilize the two-fluid system., Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures

The source of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECRs) remains one of the greatest mysteries in astrophysics. Their possible source can be the galactic nuclei, where the ultra-high gravity region plays a crucial role. Cosmic rays are extremely energetic particles that travel through space with energies exceeding $10^{20}eV$, but their origin is still a mystery despite years of studies and observations. In view of this, in this work, we studied the Joshi-Malafarina-Narayan (JMN-1) naked singularity as a natural particle accelerator. We derived the necessary expressions to find center of mass energy when two particles collide. We have obtained results showing that center of mass energy of the two particles will reach to Planck energy scale. This will form a microscopic black hole which will decay in Hawking radiation, having energy on the order of $10^{26} eV$ from the ultra-high gravity region of Sgr A*. These outgoing highly energetic particles from the naked singularity could be the possible sources of UHECRs., Comment: Calculation errors

In general, energy extraction methods such as the Penrose process and the magnetic Penrose process are thought to be reliant on the existence of an ergoregion. Inside an ergoregion, there are negative energy states that allow a particle to extract energy and escape to an observer at infinity. In this paper, we considered the electromagnetic field in the rotating Janis-Newman-Winicour (JNW) spacetime. This concept is feasible because an accretion disc forms an electromagnetic field around compact objects. After that, we briefly examine negative energy orbits and their significance in energy extraction. The ergoregion is absent in a rotating JNW geometry, but we show that the effective ergoregion is there. The change in a negative energy orbit concerning the magnetic field (B), spin parameter (a), and electric charge (Q) is analyzed. We find that the total energy extraction efficiency within this process can be around $60\%$ for the rotating JNW naked singularity., Comment: 11 pages, 18 figures

We study here the unhindered gravitational collapse of spatially homogeneous (SH) scalar fields $\phi$ with a potential $V_{s}(\phi)$, as well as vector fields $\tilde{A}$ with a potential $V_{v}(B)$ where $B=g(\tilde{A},\tilde{A})$ and $g$ is the metric tensor. We show that in both cases, classes of potentials exist that give rise to black holes or naked singularities depending on the choice of the potential. The strength of the naked singularity is examined, and they are seen to be strong, in the sense of Tipler, for a wide class of respective potentials. We match the collapsing scalar/vector field with a generalized Vaidya spacetime outside. We highlight that full generality is maintained within the domain of SH scalar or vector field collapse.

Various astrophysical and cosmological observations today serve as an indirect evidence of the existence of dark matter in the universe. In the present work, we propose a class of spacetimes that show some important characteristics relevant to the spacetime of a dark matter halo. These spacetimes are static and spherically symmetric solutions of the Einstein field equations. The proposed spacetimes satisfy the flat velocity profile of a galactic object far away from the center, they give good agreement to the astrometric data of the S2 star, and these also cast a central shadow. Using the Penrose diagram, we show that the causal nature of the central singularity here is null. This single spacetime model for galactic dark matter may therefore be used to explain some of the properties of galactic dynamics at different length scales., Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures

Extending semantic parsers to code-switched input has been a challenging problem, primarily due to a lack of supervised training data. In this work, we introduce CST5, a new data augmentation technique that finetunes a T5 model using a small seed set ($\approx$100 utterances) to generate code-switched utterances from English utterances. We show that CST5 generates high quality code-switched data, both intrinsically (per human evaluation) and extrinsically by comparing baseline models which are trained without data augmentation to models which are trained with augmented data. Empirically we observe that using CST5, one can achieve the same semantic parsing performance by using up to 20x less labeled data. To aid further research in this area, we are also releasing (a) Hinglish-TOP, the largest human annotated code-switched semantic parsing dataset to date, containing 10k human annotated Hindi-English (Hinglish) code-switched utterances, and (b) Over 170K CST5 generated code-switched utterances from the TOPv2 dataset. Human evaluation shows that both the human annotated data as well as the CST5 generated data is of good quality.

The present study reports PIV analysis of the surface flow profile using a smartphone camera in ambient light instead of high-tech equipment like a professional camera and high-power laser/ LEDs. Additionally, it provides a stepwise method for optimizing recording speed and interrogation window size for the vortex flow generated at different rotational frequencies of the magnetic stirrer. The optimization method has been explained with an example of the vortex flow generated by a magnetic stirrer. The analysis has been carried out using the Matlab-based application PIVlab. Finally, the optimized parameters have been compared with the Burger vortex model, which shows good agreement with the PIV data. The proposed method can also determine the sureface flow of opaque liquids., Comment: 12 pages, 6 Figures (regular), 1 Figure (suppl.), 4 Tables

The general theory of relativity predicts the relativistic effect in the orbital motions of S-stars which are orbiting around our Milky-way galactic center. The post-Newtonian or higher-order approximated Schwarzschild black hole models have been used by GRAVITY and UCLA galactic center groups to carefully investigate the S2 star's periastron precession. In this paper, we investigate the scalar field effect on the orbital dynamics of S2 star. Hence, we consider a spacetime, namely Janis-Newman-Winicour (JNW) spacetime which is seeded by a minimally coupled, mass-less scalar field. The novel feature of this spacetime is that one can retain the Schwarzschild spacetime from JNW spacetime considering zero scalar charge. We constrain the scalar charge of JNW spacetime by best fitting the astrometric data of S2 star using the Monte-Carlo-Markov-Chain (MCMC) technique assuming the charge to be positive. Our best-fitted result implies that similar to the Schwarzschild black hole spacetime, the JNW naked singularity spacetime with an appropriate scalar charge also offers a satisfactory fitting to the observed data for S2 star. Therefore, the JNW naked singularity could be a contender for explaining the nature of Sgr A* through the orbital motions of the S2 star., Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables

The fundamentals of estimating essential stellar parameters of an open cluster-NGC 2360 and globular clusters-NGC 5272 are presented extensively in this work. Here, the evaluation of stellar parameters, by manually fitting the appropriate isochrones on the color magnitude diagrams (CMDs), of the selected star clusters is discussed comprehensively. Aperture photometry and PSF fitting photometry are conducted on g, r, and i standard band filter images of Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) using the aperture photometry tool (APT) to obtain the respective CMDs. Further, to achieve the stellar parameters, isochrone fitting is described in detail. This work on stellar parameters evaluation has attained the following results: age of NGC 2360 is found to be 708 Myrs with metallicity, [Fe/H], of -0.15, whereas NGC 5272 is having age of 11.56 Gyrs with metallicity, [Fe/H], of -1.57. Additionally, the interstellar reddening, E(B-V), and distance modulus, DM, for NGC 2360 are obtained as 0.12 and 11.65, respectively. While, for NGC 5272, the interstellar reddening is attained as E(B-V)=0.015, and the distance modulus is DM=15.1. The values of these stellar parameters are found to be in close approximation with the results provided in the literature based on the IRAF analysis technique. The distribution of radii, masses, and temperatures are included along with the initial mass function (IMF) for both the start clusters. Thus, this article would aid in providing insight into the evaluation of stellar parameters by the astronomical photometry analysis which would successively upsurge the understanding of our universe. It should be noted that the cleaning of cluster population on the CMDs from the foreground/background stars, clearing of spurious objects, error estimations and the membership determination are not carried out in this work and are considered as separate project for analysis., Comment: 17 pages, 12 figures, Journal: Bulgarian Astronomical Journal

This article provides detailed description on the fundamentals of aperture photometry analysis. The differential and all-sky aperture photometry techniques are described thoroughly to depict the difference between the two techniques and their selection for determining the stars' magnitudes and their respective magnitude errors. The crucial calibration parameters required for the all-sky photometry analysis such as atmospheric extinctioncoefficient, air-mass, zero point, color term and color index are discussed comprehensively with their extraction from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) archive. The all-sky aperture photometry technique is applied on the stars of an open cluster NGC 2420 to determine their calibrated magnitudes and magnitude errors in the g, r, and i bands. The images required for the analysis are extracted from data release DR12 of SDSS III archive. Herein, the photometry analysis is performed by the Makali'i: SUBARU Image Processor, a Windows-based software. This software has a simple yet effective GUI and it provides the starlight minus the background sky light value with a single click. This article would aid in providing the insight into the physics of aperture photometry by manually scanning the astronomical images. In addition, the g, r, and i magnitudes are transformed to B, V, and R band magnitudes of Johnson-Cousins UBVRI photometric system. The color magnitude diagram for both the standard photometry systems are also provided., Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures, Journal: Bulgarian Astronomical Journal

In this paper, we investigate the light trajectories and shadow properties in the rotating version of null naked singularity (NNS) spacetime which is derived using the Newman- Janis algorithm without complexification method. We discuss some of the geometrical properties and causal structure of Rotating Naked Singularity (RNS) spacetime. The gravitational lensing in a rotating naked singularity is analyzed, and the results are compared to those of a Kerr black hole. In the case of a Kerr black hole, the photon sphere exists for both prograde and retrograde photon orbits, whereas for RNS, the photon sphere exists only for retrograde photon orbits. As a result, the naked singularity projects an arc-shaped shadow that differs from the contour-shaped shadow cast by a Kerr black hole., Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures

In this paper, the Penrose process is being used to extract rotational energy from regular black holes. Initially, we consider the rotating Simpson-Visser regular spacetime which describes the class of geometries of the Kerr black hole's mimickers. The Penrose process is then studied through conformally transformed rotating singular and regular black hole solutions. These both Simpson-Visser and conformally transformed geometries depend on mass, spin, and an additional regularisation parameter $l$. In both cases, we investigate how the spin and regularisation parameter $l$ affects the configuration of an ergoregion and event horizons. Surprisingly, we find that the energy extraction efficiency from the event horizon surface is not dependent on the regularisation parameter $l$ in the Simpson-Visser regular spacetimes and hence it does not vary from the Kerr black hole case. While, in the conformally transformed singular and regular black holes, we obtain the efficiency rate of extracted energies are extremely high compared to the Kerr black hole scenario. This distinct signature of the conformally transformed singular and regular black holes would be useful to distinguish them from the Kerr black hole in observation., Comment: 16 pages, 23 figures

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., Comment: 82 pages, 47 figures, 50+ models tested. v3: fixed a few figures, clarified several points, included various analytical expressions for shadow sizes within the different models, added a few references, included a summary table (Table II). Version accepted for publication in Classical and Quantum Gravity

In the present paper, we study the thermal properties of the geometrically thin accretion disks surrounding the null naked singularity (NNS) and the first type of Joshi-Malafarina-Narayan (JMN1) spacetimes and compare the results with the accretion disk around equally massive Schwarzschild black hole. First, we examine the properties of the circular orbits in these spacetimes. The emitted flux, radiation spectra, disk efficiency, and temperature distribution on the disk surface are then investigated. The efficiency of the conversion of the accreting matter into radiation is found to be substantially higher for naked singularities than that for black holes. We also verify that the flux radiated from the disk surface is greater for null and JMN1 naked singularities than black holes. Hence, the accretion disks around naked singularities are much more luminous than the black holes of the same mass and accretion rate. In the luminosity spectra of the NNS, we find that the significant contribution of the low-frequency is coming from the nearby regions of the NNS. Furthermore, the spectral luminosity distribution for the "non-zero torque" at the inner boundary is also analysed by the inclusion of the non-zero torque value at the inner edge of the disk. The slopes of the luminosity distribution with respect to frequency for naked singularity spacetimes differ significantly from those of black holes. These unique features of the naked singularities serve as an effective tool to distinguish them from the equally massive black holes., Comment: 16 pages, 20 figures

Recent observations of the Milky-way galactic center at various frequencies suggest a supermassive compact object. Generally, that supermassive compact object is assumed to be a `Black Hole', having more than four million solar masses. In this work, we study the observational appearance at $230$ GHz and probe the nature of Sagittarius-A* (Sgr A*) as the naked singularity. Here, we consider the first type of Joshi-Malafarina-Narayan (JMN-1) and Janis-Newman-Winicour (JNW) naked singularity spacetimes which are anisotropic fluid solutions of the Einstein field equations. Motivated by radiatively inefficient accretion flows (RIAF), we use an analytical model for emission and absorption coefficients to solve the general relativistic radiative transfer equation. The resulting emission is then utilized to generate images to predict the nature of the Sgr A* with synthetic Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) images from current and future Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) arrays. Three different EHT array configurations are being used to simulate the models of naked singularities and a black hole. This may have little effect on the baseline, but it would increase the u-v plane gridding, making it feasible to capture a better-resolved image. Therefore, it is quite interesting and useful for the upcoming shadow image of the Sgr A* to predict whether it is a supermassive black hole or a naked singularity., Comment: Comments are welcome!

We investigate the unhindered gravitational collapse of a homogeneous scalar field with nonzero potential, a two-dimensional analog of the Mexican hat-shaped Higgs field potential. The collapsing scalar field is surrounded by an exterior retarded (outgoing) generalized Vaidya spacetime. We prove that the density dependence on the scale factor cannot be expressed as an algebraic function in such a scenario. For a certain transcendental expression of the density of such field as a function of scale factor, we then show that the collapse evolves to a singularity at an infinite comoving time, which is equivalent to saying that the singularity is avoided altogether. An ultra high density region of the order of Planck length can, however, be reached in a finite comoving time. The absence of the formation of trapped surfaces makes this ultra high density region globally visible., Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures

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 red-shift and observed flux distributions as viewed by distant observers at various inclination angles. Simpson-Visser family of metrics create 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., Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures

In this paper, we construct the rotating Janis-Newman-Winicour (JNW) naked singularity spacetime using Newman-Janis Algorithm (NJA). We analyse NJA with and without complexification methods and find that the energy conditions do satisfied when we skip the complexification step. We study the shadows cast by rotating JNW naked singularity and compare them with the shadows cast by the Kerr black hole. We find that the shadow of the rotating naked singularity can be distinguished from the shadow of the Kerr black hole. While we analyse the precession of timelike bound orbits in rotating JNW spacetime, we find that it can have a negative (or opposite) precession, which is not present in the Kerr black hole case. These novel signatures of the shadow and orbital precession in rotating JNW naked singularity spacetime could be important in the context of the recent observation of the shadow of the M87 galactic center and the stellar dynamics of `S-stars' around Milkyway galactic center., Comment: 14 pages, 13 figures

In this paper, we investigate the properties of the Lense-Thirring precession frequency and periastron precession of the relativistic bound orbits in slowly rotating naked singularity spacetimes. We show that the precession frequencies of a stationary test gyroscope are quite unique in slowly rotating naked singularity spacetimes, and therefore, one can easily distinguish them from the slowly rotating Kerr black hole spacetime. On the other hand, we also show that in slowly rotating Joshi-Malafarina-Narayan (JMN1) naked singularity spacetime, negative precession of the timelike bound orbits is allowed which is not possible in Kerr and slowly rotating null naked singularity spacetimes., Comment: 14 pages, 20 figures

It is now theoretically well established that not only a black hole can cast shadow, but other compact objects such as naked singularities, gravastar or boson stars can also cast shadows. An intriguing fact that has emerged is that the event horizon and the photon sphere are not necessary for a shadow to form. Now, when two different types of equally massive compact objects cast shadows of same size, then it would be very difficult to distinguish them from each other. However, the nature of the nulllike and timelike geodesics around the two compact objects would be different, since their spacetime geometries are different. Therefore, the intensity distribution of light emitted by the accreting matter around the compact objects would also be different. In this paper, we emphasize this phenomenon in detail. Here, we show that a naked singularity spacetime, namely, the first type of Joshi-Malafarina-Narayan (JMN1) spacetime can be distinguishable from the Schwarzschild blackhole spacetime by the intensity distribution of light, though they have same mass and shadow size. We also use the image processing techniques here to show this difference, where we use the theoretical intensity data. The differences that we get by using the image processing technique may be treated as a theoretical template of intensity differences, which may be useful to analyse the observational data of the image of a compact object., Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures

We investigate the global causal structure of the end state of a spherically symmetric marginally bound Lemaitre-Tolman-Bondi (LTB) \cite{Lemaitre, Tolman, Bondi} collapsing cloud (which is well studied in general relativity) in the framework of modified gravity having the generalized Lagrangian $R+\alpha R^2$ in the action. Here $R$ is the Ricci scalar, and $\alpha \geq 0$ is a constant. By fixing the functional form of the metric components of the LTB spacetime, using up the available degree of freedom, we realize that the matching surface of the interior and the exterior metric are different for different values of $\alpha$. This change in the matching surface can alter the causal property of the first central singularity. We depict this by showing a numerical example. Additionally, for a globally naked singularity to have physical relevance, a congruence of null geodesics should escape from such singularity to be visible to an asymptotic observer for an infinite time. For this to happen, the first central singularity should be a nodal point. We here give a heuristic method to show that this singularity is a nodal point by considering the above class of theory of gravity, of which general relativity is a particular case., Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, accepted in classical and quantum gravity

We investigate here the final state of gravitational collapse of a non-spherical and non-marginally bound dust cloud as modeled by the Szekeres spacetime. We show that a directionally globally naked singularity can be formed in this case near the collapsing cloud boundary, and not at its geometric center as is typically the case for a spherical gravitational collapse. This is a strong curvature naked singularity in the sense of Tipler criterion on gravitational strength. The null geodesics escaping from the singularity would be less scattered in this case in certain directions since the singularity is close to the boundary of the cloud as is the case in the current scenario. The physical implications are pointed out., Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures

The global visibility of a singularity as an end state of the gravitational collapse of a spherically symmetric pressureless cloud is investigated. We show the existence of a non-zero measured set of parameters: the total mass and the initial mean density of the collapsing cloud, giving rise to a physically strong globally visible singularity as the end state for a fixed velocity function. The existence of such a set indicates that such singularity is stable under small perturbation in the initial data causing its existence. This is true for marginally as well as non-marginally bound cases. The possibility of the presence of such suitable parameters in the astrophysical setup is then studied: $1)$ The singularities' requirements at the center of the M87 galaxy and at the center of our galaxy (SgrA*) to be globally visible are discussed in terms of the initial size of the collapsing cloud forming them, presuming that such singularities are formed due to gravitational collapse. $2)$ The requirement for the primordial singularities formed due to a collapsing configuration after getting detached from the background universe, at the time of matter-dominated era just after the time of matter-radiation equality, to be globally visible, is discussed. $3)$ The scenario of the collapse of a neutron star after reaching a critical mass, which is achieved by accreting the supernova ejecta expelled by its binary companion core progenitor, is considered. The primary aim of this paper is to show that globally visible singularities can form in astrophysical setups under appropriate circumstances., Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, 1 table

While the event horizon of a black hole could cast a shadow that was observed recently, a central singularity without horizon could also give rise to such a feature. This leaves us with a question on the nature of the supermassive black holes at the galactic centers, and if they admit an event horizon necessarily. We point out that observations of motion of stars around the galactic center should give a clear idea of the nature of this central supermassive object. We examine and discuss here recent developments that indicate intriguing behavior of the star motions that could possibly distinguish the existence or otherwise of an event horizon at the galactic center. We compare the motion of the S2 star with these theoretical results, fitting the observational data with theory, and it is seen that the star motions and precession of their orbits around the galactic center provide important clues on the nature of this central compact object., Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures

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., Comment: 13 pages, 20 figures