An Upper Limit on the Charge of the Black Hole Sgr A* from EHT Observations

Abstract

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) recently released an image of the supermassive black hole Sgr A* showing an angular shadow diameter d _sh = 48.7 ± 7 μ as and Schwarzschild shadow deviation $\delta =-{0.08}_{-0.09}^{+0.09}\,(\mathrm{VLTI})$ , $-{0.04}_{-0.10}^{+0.09}\,(\mathrm{Keck})$ using a black hole mass $M={4.0}_{-0.6}^{+1.1}\times {10}^{6}\,{M}_{\odot }$ . The EHT image of Sgr A* is consistent with a Kerr black hole’s expected appearance, and the results directly prove the existence of a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Here, we use the EHT observational results for Sgr A* to investigate the constraints on its charge with the aid of Kerr-like black holes, paying attention to three leading rotating models, namely Kerr–Newman, Horndeski, and hairy black holes. Modeling the supermassive black hole Sgr A* as these Kerr-like black holes, we observe that the EHT results for Sgr A* place stricter upper limits on the parameter space of Kerr–Newman and Horndeski black holes than those placed by the EHT results for M87*. A systematic bias analysis reveals that observational results from future EHT experiments will place more precise limits on the charge of the black hole Sgr A*. Thus, the Kerr-like black holes and Kerr black holes are indiscernible in a substantial region of the EHT-constrained parameter space; the claim is substantiated by our bias analysis.

Keywords

• Astrophysical black holes
• Black hole physics
• Galactic center
• Gravitation
• Gravitational lensing