A General Discussion on Photon Spheres in Different Categories of Spacetimes

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Qiao, Chen-Kai, Su, Ping, Huang, Yang
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Qiao, Chen-Kai
Su, Ping
Huang, Yang
author_facet Qiao, Chen-Kai
Su, Ping
Huang, Yang
contents Photon spheres have attracted considerable interest in the studies of black holes and other astrophysical objects. For different categories of spacetimes (or gravitational sources), the existence of photon spheres and their distributions are dramatically influenced by the geometric and topological properties of spacetimes and characteristics of the corresponding gravitational fields. In this work, we carry out a geometric analysis on photon spheres for different categories of spacetime (including black hole spacetime, ultra-compact object's spacetime, regular spacetime, and naked singularity spacetime). Some universal properties and conclusions are obtained for these spacetimes. We mostly focus on the existence of photon spheres, the total number of photon spheres $n = n_{\text{stable}} + n_{\text{unstable}}$, the subtraction of stable photon sphere and unstable photon sphere $w = n_{\text{stable}} - n_{\text{unstable}}$ in different categories of spacetimes. These conclusions are derived solely from geometric properties of optical geometry of spacetimes, irrelevant to the specific spacetime metric forms. Besides, our results successfully recover some important theorems on photon spheres proposed in recent years.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_04573
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A General Discussion on Photon Spheres in Different Categories of Spacetimes
Qiao, Chen-Kai
Su, Ping
Huang, Yang
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Mathematical Physics
Photon spheres have attracted considerable interest in the studies of black holes and other astrophysical objects. For different categories of spacetimes (or gravitational sources), the existence of photon spheres and their distributions are dramatically influenced by the geometric and topological properties of spacetimes and characteristics of the corresponding gravitational fields. In this work, we carry out a geometric analysis on photon spheres for different categories of spacetime (including black hole spacetime, ultra-compact object's spacetime, regular spacetime, and naked singularity spacetime). Some universal properties and conclusions are obtained for these spacetimes. We mostly focus on the existence of photon spheres, the total number of photon spheres $n = n_{\text{stable}} + n_{\text{unstable}}$, the subtraction of stable photon sphere and unstable photon sphere $w = n_{\text{stable}} - n_{\text{unstable}}$ in different categories of spacetimes. These conclusions are derived solely from geometric properties of optical geometry of spacetimes, irrelevant to the specific spacetime metric forms. Besides, our results successfully recover some important theorems on photon spheres proposed in recent years.
title A General Discussion on Photon Spheres in Different Categories of Spacetimes
topic General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Mathematical Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.04573