A CODE TO COMPUTE THE EMISSION OF THIN ACCRETION DISKS IN NON-KERR SPACETIMES AND TEST THE NATURE OF BLACK HOLE CANDIDATES

Astrophysical black hole (BH) candidates are thought to be the Kerr BHs predicted by general relativity, but the actual nature of these objects has still to be proven. The analysis of the electromagnetic radiation emitted by a geometrically thin and optically thick accretion disk around a BH candidate can provide information about the geometry of the spacetime around the compact object and it can thus test the Kerr BH hypothesis. In this paper, I present a code based on a ray-tracing approach and capable of computing some basic properties of thin accretion disks in spacetimes with deviations from the Kerr background. The code can be used to fit current and future X-ray data of stellar-mass BH candidates and constrain possible deviations from the Kerr geometry in the spin parameter-deformation parameter plane.