Optical Appearances of Accreting Ellis-Bronnikov Wormholes Observed from Both Sides of Throats

Abstract

This study investigates the optical appearance of the Ellis-Bronnikov wormhole as viewed from both sides of its throat, under conditions of optically thick and thin accretion. By solving the geodesic equation, we derive the relationship between the impact parameter and the aiming distance of photons, and found that if the observer and the accretion disk are located on both sides of the throat, these two quantities are not equal. The optical image of the wormhole observed from the other side of the throat is obtained through the ray-tracing method. For optically thick accretion, increases in the parameter $n$ lead to an increase in the apparent size of the wormhole but a decrease in its brightness. For optically thin accretion, the image is similar to the internal and external inversion of the image observed from the other side. Furthermore, for optically thin accretion flows, the direct image does not block the emission from higher-order images, allowing radiation emitted from regions much closer to the event horizon to reach the observer. Our simulation results show that when the observer is on the $\mathcal{R}^+$ side, EB wormholes with small $n$ can mimic the images taken by the EHT to some extent, while wormholes with large $n$ or with the observer on the $\mathcal{R}^-$ side can be ruled out.