https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-026-15331-w
Regular Article - Theoretical Physics
Shadows and quasinormal modes of a Schwarzschild black hole immersed in Hernquist dark matter halo
College of Physics, Guizhou University, 550025, Guiyang, China
a
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Received:
13
November
2025
Accepted:
14
January
2026
Published online:
30
January
2026
Abstract
This paper investigates the shadow and quasinormal modes (QNMs) of a Schwarzschild black hole (BH) embedded in a Hernquist dark matter (DM) halo, focusing on the influence of DM parameters – specifically the core radius 
and core density 
– on BH observational signatures. We analyze the structure of the BH shadow, lensing ring, and photon ring, showing that the shadow radius increases with both and . Using the WKB approximation, Padé approximants, and time-domain integration, we compute the QNMs for scalar, electromagnetic, and axial gravitational perturbations. Our results reveal that the DM halo modifies the spacetime’s effective potential: larger values of or reduce the peak of the potential barrier, leading to lower oscillation frequencies and slower wavefunction damping. These findings highlight the systematic impact of DM on strong-field observables and suggest that BH shadows and QNMs provide a viable means to probe DM profiles in galactic nuclei.
© The Author(s) 2026
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Funded by SCOAP3.
