The gravitational searchlight effect from synchrotron radiation in the Schwarzschild geometry

✍ Scribed by Henry Grady Hughes III

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1973
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 730 KB
• Volume: 80
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0003-4916
• DOI: 10.1016/0003-4916(73)90113-9

✦ Synopsis

Gravitational synchrotron radiation is studied using the techniques of geometrical optics. It is found that the geometry of the Schwarzschild black hole creates a rotating searchlight effect, even for a source particle which radiates only during an infinitesimally brief interval of coordinate time. The period of rotation of the searchlight is shown to provide a measurement of the mass of the blackhole, since the period T is related to the mass M by T = 2rr 27'12 M for the Schwarzschild geometry and by T = ~PM for the extreme (a = M) Kerr geometry.