- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review D

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access

Matter accumulations and accretion tori around wormholes

Kristian Gjorgjieski* and Jutta Kunz†

Petya Nedkova‡

  • *Contact author: kristian.gjorgjieski@uol.de
  • †Contact author: jutta.kunz@uni-oldenburg.de
  • ‡Contact author: pnedkova@phys.uni-sofia.bg
PDF

Phys. Rev. D 112, 104019 – Published 10 November, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/s7tm-sj4c

Abstract

We study circular orbits and accretion structures around symmetric wormholes. As exemplary solutions we choose three different wormhole spacetimes, namely rotating traversable wormholes from the Teo class, the rotating Simpson-Visser metric with the parameter spectrum corresponding to wormholes and a static wormhole from beyond Horndeski theories. We show the existence of a spectrum of circular orbits at the wormhole throat for each of these wormhole solutions and analyze the boundaries of this spectrum across the respective wormhole parameter range. For each of the solutions we identified that vast regions of the parameter space correspond to stable orbits. The presence of this orbit spectrum can be linked through accretion disk models to matter accumulations which may form at the throat. We present here examples of such disk solutions by implementing the Polish doughnut model. In some cases, these matter accumulations are encapsulating the throat and could imply central bright regions of the wormhole spacetime. Furthermore, the combined analysis of the equatorial Keplerian orbits and the throat orbits, leads to a set of different disk configurations, where matter accumulations at the throat may be present with outer tori around them, in some cases also as a connected structure. Our results may hint to possible instabilities of wormholes, especially if they have an ergoregion. Moreover, wormholes with such disks, may appear more starlike when it comes to their observational signature, due to the centralized and more spherical emission profile associated with the possible matter accumulations at the throat.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (31)

  1. L. Flamm, Republication of: Contributions to Einstein’s theory of gravitation, Gen. Relativ. Gravit. 47, 72 (2015).
  2. E. Scholz, Hermann Weyl’s Raum-Zeit-Materie and a general introduction to his scientific work, in Springer DMV Seminar (Birkhäuser, Basel, 2001), Vol. 30.
  3. A. Einstein and N. Rosen, The particle problem in the general theory of relativit, Phys. Rev. 48, 73 (1935).
  4. R. W. Fuller and J. A. Wheeler, Causality and multiply connected space-time, Phys. Rev. 128, 919 (1962).
  5. H. G. Ellis, Ether flow through a drainhole: A particle model in general relativity, J. Math. Phys. (N.Y.) 14, 104 (1973).
  6. K. A. Bronnikov, Scalar-tensor theory and scalar charge, Acta Phys. Pol. B 4, 251 (1973), https://www.actaphys.uj.edu.pl/fulltext?series=Reg&vol=4&page=251.
  7. M. S. Morris and K. S. Throne, Wormholes in spacetime and their use for interstellar travel: A tool for teaching general relativity, Am. J. Phys. 56, 395 (1988).
  8. M. Visser, Traversable wormholes from surgically modified Schwarzschild spacetimes, Nucl. Phys. B328, 203 (1989).
  9. E. Teo, Rotating traversable wormholes, Phys. Rev. D 58, 024014 (1998).
  10. J. G. Cramer et al., Natural wormholes as gravitational lenses, Phys. Rev. D 51, 3117 (1995).
  11. E. Gravanis and S. Willison, “Mass without mass” from thin shells in Gauss-Bonnet gravity, Phys. Rev. D 75, 084025 (2007).
  12. K. A. Bronnikov and A. M. Galiakhmetov, Wormholes without exotic matter in Einstein–Cartan theory, Gravitation Cosmol. 21, 283 (2015).
  13. J. L. Blázquez-Salcedo, C. Knoll, and E. Radu, Traversable wormholes in Einstein-Dirac-Maxwell theory, Phys. Rev. Lett. 126, 101102 (2021).
  14. A. Bakopoulos, C. Charmousis, and P. Kanti, Traversable wormholes in beyond Horndeski theories, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 05 (2022) 022.
  15. J. Mazza, E. Franzin, and S. Liberati, A novel family of rotating black hole mimickers, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 04 (2021) 082.
  16. P. G. Nedkova, V. K. Tinchev, and S. S. Yazadjiev, Shadow of a rotating traversable wormhole, Phys. Rev. D 88, 124019 (2013).
  17. G. Gyulchev, P. Nedkova, V. Tinchev, and S. Yazadjiev, On the shadow of rotating traversable wormholes, Eur. Phys. J. C 78, 544 (2018).
  18. H. Huang, J. Kunz, J. Yang, and C. Zhang, Light ring behind wormhole throat: Geodesics, images, and shadows, Phys. Rev. D 107, 104060 (2023).
  19. S. Biswas, C. Singha, and S. Chakraborty, Galactic wormholes: Geometry, stability, and echoes, Phys. Rev. D 109, 064043 (2024).
  20. S. Paul, R. Shaikh, P. Banerjee, and T. Sarkar, Observational signatures of wormholes with thin accretion disks, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 03 (2020) 055.
  21. E. Deligianni, J. Kunz, P. Nedkova, S. Yazadjiev, and R. Zheleva, Quasiperiodic oscillations around rotating traversable wormholes, Phys. Rev. D 104, 024048 (2021).
  22. E. Deligianni, B. Kleihaus, J. Kunz, P. Nedkova, and S. Yazadjiev, Quasiperiodic oscillations in rotating Ellis wormhole spacetimes, Phys. Rev. D 104, 064043 (2021).
  23. V. Delijski, G. Gyulchev, P. Nedkova, and S. Yazadjiev, Polarized image of equatorial emission in horizonless spacetimes: Traversable wormholes, Phys. Rev. D 106, 104024 (2022).
  24. L. G. Fishbone and V. Moncrief, Relativistic fluid disks in orbit around Kerr black holes, Astrophys. J. 207, 962 (1976).
  25. M. Abramowicz, M. Jaroszynski, and M. Sikora, Relativistic, accreting disks, Astron. Astrophys. 63, 221 (1978), https://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pdf/1978A%26A....63..221A.
  26. M. Kozlowski, M. Jaroszynski, and M. A. Abramowicz, The analytic theory of fluid disks orbiting the Kerr black hole, Astron. Astrophys. 63, 209 (1978), https://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pdf/1978A%26A....63..209K.
  27. M. A. Abramowicz, M. Calvani, and L. Nobili, Thick accretion disks with super-Eddington luminosities, Astrophys. J. 242, 772 (1980).
  28. B. Paczyńsky and P. J. Wiita, Thick accretion disks and supercritical luminosities, Astron. Astrophys. 88, 23 (1980), https://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pdf/1980A%26A....88...23P.
  29. B. Paczynski and G. Bisnovatyi-Kogan, A model of a thin accretion disk around a black hole, Acta Astron. 31, 283 (1981), https://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pdf/1981AcA....31..283P.
  30. B. Paczynski and M. A. Abramowicz, A model of a thick disk with equatorial accretion, Astrophys. J. 253, 897 (1982).
  31. K. Gjorgjieski, J. Kunz, and P. Nedkova, Circular orbits and photon orbits at wormhole throats, Phys. Rev. D 112, L101501 (2025).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. D 112, 104019– Published 10 November, 2025
  • Received 7 August 2025
  • Accepted 4 October 2025
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation