We study optical phenomena related to appearance of Keplerian accretion discs orbiting Kerr superspinars predicted by the string theory. The superspinar exterior is described by the standard Kerr naked singularity geometry breaking the black hole limit on the internal angular momentum (spin). We construct local photon escape cones for a variety of orbiting sources that enable to determine the superspinars silhouette in the case of distant observers. We show that the superspinar silhouette depends strongly on the assumed edge where the external Kerr spacetime is joined to the internal spacetime governed by the string theory and significantly differs from the black hole silhouette. The appearance of the accretion disc is strongly dependent on the value of the superspinar spin in both their shape and frequency shift profile. Apparent extension of the disc grows significantly with growing spin, while the frequency shift grows with descending spin. This behavior differs substantially from appearance of discs orbiting black holes enabling thus, at least in principle, to distinguish clearly the Kerr superspinars and black holes. In vicinity of a Kerr superspinar the non-escaped photons have to be separated to those captured by the superspinar and those being trapped in its strong gravitational field leading to self-illumination of the disc that could even influence its structure and causes self-reflection effect of radiation of the disc. The amount of trapped photons grows with descending of the superspinar spin. We thus can expect significant self-illumination effects in the field of Kerr superspinars with near-extreme spin a ∼ 1.

We study the influence of the tidal charge parameter of the braneworld models onto some optical phenomena in rotating black hole spacetimes. The escape photon cones are determined for special families of locally non-rotating, circular geodetical and radially free falling observers. The silhuette of a rotating black hole, the shape of an equatorial thin accretion disk and time delay effect for direct and indirect images of a radiation hot spot orbiting the black hole are given and classified in terms of the black hole rotational and tidal parameters. It is shown that rising of negatively-valued tidal parameter, with rotational parameter fixed, generally strenghtens the relativistic effects and suppresses the rotation induced asymmetries in the optical phenomena.

String theory indicates the existence of primordial Kerr superspinars, extremely compact objects with exterior described by the Kerr naked-singularity geometry. The primordial superspinars have to be converted to a black hole due to accretion, but they could survive to the era of high-redshift quasars. We discuss observational phenomena caused by the primordial Kerr superspinars in this era, considering the properties of corotating Keplerian accretion discs orbiting such superspinars and the optical phenomena modified by their presence. The potential well around a near-extreme superspinar with spin a very close to the extreme black hole value a = 1 is very deep so that the efficiency of the accretion process reaches 157.7%, influencing thus significantly the spectral continuum of corotating Keplerian discs and giving a signature of near-extreme superspinars. Such superspinars can also serve as an efficient accelerator for extremely high-energy collisions. Phenomena enabling a clear distinction of primordial Kerr superspinars and black holes are related to the disc oscillations with the radial and vertical epicyclic frequencies and the most profound could be differences implied by the profiled spectral lines generated in the innermost parts of the corotating Keplerian discs.