An initially retrograde accretion flow is transformed into a prograde configuration before plunging into the black hole, as a result of the frame-dragging effect induced by the black hole’s rotation. The polarized image of a black hole shaped by such an accretion flow manifests three distinctive critical locations: the turning point of the flow’s primary image, the polarization handedness-flip location on the image plane, and the position of the primary image corresponding to the flow’s actual turning point in spacetime. Due to the influences of gravitational lensing and gravitational Faraday rotation, these three positions generally do not coincide. In this work, we examine a thin equatorial accretion disk composed of initially retrograde, geodesically moving flows, and conduct a systematic investigation into the interrelations and discrepancies among these critical locations. We elucidate the spatial hierarchy among the three, and for an on-axis observer, we derive approximate analytic expressions characterizing their positions.

Close

PrevNext

View figure in article

• General relativity
• Accretion disk & black-hole plasma
• Classical black holes