A rotating modified JNW spacetime as a Kerr black hole mimicker

Abstract: The Event Horizon Telescope has recently observed the images and shadows of the compact objects M87$^*$ and Sgr A$^*$ at the centres of the galaxies Messier 87 and Milky Way. This has opened up a new window in observational astronomy to probe and test gravity and fundamental physics in the strong-field regime. In this paper, we consider a rotating version of a modified Janis-Newman-Winicour metric, study its shadow, and constrain the metric parameters using the observed shadows of M87$^*$ and Sgr A$^*$. Depending on parameter values, the spacetime metric represents either a naked singularity or a wormhole. We find that the naked singularity case is not consistent with observations, as it casts a shadow which is much smaller than the observed ones. On the other hand, the shadow formed by the wormhole branch, depending on the parameter values, is consistent with the observations. We put constraints on the wormhole throat radius by comparing the shadow with the observed ones of M87$^*$ and Sgr A$^*$.