Test of Kerr-Sen metric with black hole observations

Abstract: The Kerr-Sen black hole is a rotating charged black hole solution arising from heterotic string theory. In 4-dimensions effective theory the bosonic fields are: a $U(1)$ gauge boson, a Kalb-Ramond 3-form which is equivalent to a pseudoscalar axion in 4-dimensions, the dilaton and the graviton. The coupling constants in the theory are $\alpha^{\prime}$ (inverse string tension) and $\kappa$ (inverse reduced Planck mass in 4-dimensions) and the charge of the $U(1)$ field and the axion-photon coupling are related to these two. Sen found a black hole solution (the Kerr-Sen black hole) with these fields as the external hair of the black hole. In this paper we investigate the possibility of determining the Sen solution from observations. The observations which can test the Kerr-Sen black hole are: (a) determination of the shape of the photon shadow, and (b) the rotation of polarization of photon due to axion hair. The deviation from circularity gives the $U(1)$ charge of the black hole and identification of this charge in terms of the photon coupling leads to a prediction of frequency independent "Faraday rotation" in terms of black hole parameters already determined from the shadow. Similar measurements of Kerr-Newman black hole with axion hair have no correlation between the shape of the image and the amount of "Faraday rotation". This correlation can be a distinctive test of the Sen metric. In the recent observation from EHT of M87* shadow, the deviation from circularity has an upper bound of 10%. If this observation is refined to 1% accuracy then a definitive prediction of the charge of the Kerr-Sen black hole and the "Faraday rotation" can be made. Interestingly observations of "Faraday rotation" have shown that the effect is independent of frequency pointing to an axionic hair interpretation for the effect.