• Accepted Paper

Symplectic geometry of the black hole photon shell

Judy Shir and Shahar Hadar

Phys. Rev. D - Accepted 19 October, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/fy11-b9c2

Abstract

The unstably bound, critical null geodesics of the Kerr spacetime form a distinguished class of orbits whose properties govern observables such as the photon ring and the high-frequency component of black-hole ringdown. This set of orbits defines a codimension-two submanifold of the null-geodesic phase space known as the . In this work we investigate the photon shell’s intrinsic symplectic geometry. Using the induced symplectic form, we construct the canonical volume form on the shell and compute the differential phase-space volume it encloses as a function of radius – equivalently, the radial density of states. In the near-extremal limit the photon shell bifurcates into near-horizon and far-region components; we find that approximately 3% of the shell’s phase-space volume resides in the near-horizon component. We also analyze a thickening of the photon shell that includes near-critical orbits, and compute its differential phase-space volume. Beyond their intrinsic theoretical interest, these results may inform the interpretation of high-resolution observations of spinning black holes.

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