General relativistic lightbending

Simulation of 10,000 photons from a lamppost corona to a thin and super-Eddington disk in general relativity.

These videoes are created with the Python Package iPyVolume. The videos show the propagation of 10,000 photons emitted by a lamppost corona around a black hole with spin a=0.8. The corona is located at 10Rg above the black hole singularity (black dot). We follow the photons for 40 gravitational time (t=Rg/c). We can see how the photons follow null geodesics until they hit the reflection surface. Close to the black hole, you can see how the ergosphere forcing the photons to rotate with the black hole. And you can also see the light-bending effects which enhances the number of photons in the innermost region close to the black hole. Lastly, you can see that the photons does not move in a perfect sphere but accumulate towards the black hole since the photons appear to slow down as you approach the event horizon.