Signatures of regular black holes from the quasar continuum spectrum

Abstract

Abstract Regular black holes arising in Einstein gravity coupled to non-linear electrodynamics are worth studying as they can circumvent the $$r=0$$ r = 0 curvature singularity arising in general relativity. In this work we explore the signatures of regular black holes with a Minkowski core from the quasar continuum spectrum. We use thin-disk approximation to derive the theoretical luminosity from the accretion disk and compare it with the optical data of eighty Palomar Green quasars. Our analysis based on error estimators like the $$\chi ^2$$ χ 2 , the Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency, the index of agreement etc. reveal that optical observations of quasars favor black holes with a small non-linear electrodynamics charge parameter $$k\simeq 0.15$$ k ≃ 0.15 although the Kerr scenario is allowed within $$2-\sigma $$ 2 - σ interval. The implications are discussed.