Shadows and photon spheres with spherical accretions in the four-dimensional Gauss-Bonnet black hole

Abstract: We investigate the shadows and photon spheres of the four-dimensional Gauss-Bonnet black hole with the static and infalling spherical accretions. We show that for both cases, the shadow and photon sphere are always present. The radii of the shadow and photon sphere are independent of the profiles of accretion for a fixed Gauss-Bonnet constant, implying that the shadow is a signature of the spacetime geometry and it is hardly influenced by accretion in this case. Because of the Doppler effect, the shadow of the infalling accretion is found to be darker than that of the static one. We also investigate the effect of the Gauss-Bonnet constant on the shadow and photon sphere, and find that the larger the Gauss-Bonnet constant is, the smaller the radii of the shadow and photon sphere will be. In particular, the observed specific intensity increases with the increasing of the Gauss-Bonnet constant.