Revisiting the shadow of a black hole in the presence of a plasma

Abstract

We study the photon’s motion around a black hole in the presence of a plasma whose density is a function of the radius coordinate by a renewed ray-tracing algorithm and investigate the influence of the plasma on the shadow of the black hole. The presence of plasma affects not only the size but also the shape of the black hole shadow. Furthermore, the influence of plasma on trajectories of photons depends on the frequency of the photons. For the high-frequency photons, the influence is negligible, on the contrary, the trajectories of low-frequency photons are affected significantly by the plasma. Interestingly, it is also found that the black hole image would take on a multi-ring structure due to the presence of plasma.