Recently, a distinct shadow mechanism was proposed by Wang et al. from the asymmetric thin-shell wormhole (ATW) [X. Wang et al., Phys. Lett. B 811, 135930 (2020)]. On the other hand, Gralla, Holz, and Wald’s work [Phys. Rev. D 100, 024018 (2019)] represented a nice description of photon rings in the presence of an accretion disk around a black hole. In this paper, we are inspired to thoroughly investigate the observational appearance of an accretion disk around the ATW. Although the spacetime outside an ATW with a throat could be identical to that containing a black hole with its event horizon, we show evident additional photon rings from the ATW spacetime. Moreover, a potential lensing band between two highly demagnified photon rings is found. Our analysis provides an optically observational signature to distinguish ATWs from black holes.

• Received 15 February 2021
• Accepted 4 November 2021

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.104.124010