TY - JOUR
T1 - First M87 Event Horizon Telescope Results. I. the Shadow of the Supermassive Black Hole
AU - Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration
AU - Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration, The
AU - Akiyama, Kazunori
AU - Alberdi, Antxon
AU - Alef, Walter
AU - Asada, Keiichi
AU - Azulay, Rebecca
AU - Baczko, Anne Kathrin
AU - Ball, David
AU - Baloković, Mislav
AU - Barrett, John
AU - Bintley, Dan
AU - Blackburn, Lindy
AU - Boland, Wilfred
AU - Bouman, Katherine L.
AU - Bower, Geoffrey C.
AU - Bremer, Michael
AU - Brinkerink, Christiaan D.
AU - Brissenden, Roger
AU - Britzen, Silke
AU - Broderick, Avery E.
AU - Broguiere, Dominique
AU - Bronzwaer, Thomas
AU - Byun, Do Young
AU - Carlstrom, John E.
AU - Chael, Andrew
AU - Chan, Chi Kwan
AU - Chatterjee, Shami
AU - Chatterjee, Koushik
AU - Chen, Ming Tang
AU - Chen, Yongjun
AU - Cho, Ilje
AU - Christian, Pierre
AU - Conway, John E.
AU - Cordes, James M.
AU - Crew, Geoffrey B.
AU - Cui, Yuzhu
AU - Davelaar, Jordy
AU - Laurentis, Mariafelicia De
AU - Deane, Roger
AU - Dempsey, Jessica
AU - Desvignes, Gregory
AU - Dexter, Jason
AU - Doeleman, Sheperd S.
AU - Eatough, Ralph P.
AU - Falcke, Heino
AU - Fish, Vincent L.
AU - Fomalont, Ed
AU - Fraga-Encinas, Raquel
AU - Freeman, William T.
AU - Gammie, Charles F.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019. The American Astronomical Society..
PY - 2019/4/10
Y1 - 2019/4/10
N2 -
When surrounded by a transparent emission region, black holes are expected to reveal a dark shadow caused by gravitational light bending and photon capture at the event horizon. To image and study this phenomenon, we have assembled the Event Horizon Telescope, a global very long baseline interferometry array observing at a wavelength of 1.3 mm. This allows us to reconstruct event-horizon-scale images of the supermassive black hole candidate in the center of the giant elliptical galaxy M87. We have resolved the central compact radio source as an asymmetric bright emission ring with a diameter of 42 ±3 μas, which is circular and encompasses a central depression in brightness with a flux ratio ≈10:1. The emission ring is recovered using different calibration and imaging schemes, with its diameter and width remaining stable over four different observations carried out in different days. Overall, the observed image is consistent with expectations for the shadow of a Kerr black hole as predicted by general relativity. The asymmetry in brightness in the ring can be explained in terms of relativistic beaming of the emission from a plasma rotating close to the speed of light around a black hole. We compare our images to an extensive library of ray-traced general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations of black holes and derive a central mass of M =(6.5 ±0.7) ×10
9
M
o
. Our radio-wave observations thus provide powerful evidence for the presence of supermassive black holes in centers of galaxies and as the central engines of active galactic nuclei. They also present a new tool to explore gravity in its most extreme limit and on a mass scale that was so far not accessible.
AB -
When surrounded by a transparent emission region, black holes are expected to reveal a dark shadow caused by gravitational light bending and photon capture at the event horizon. To image and study this phenomenon, we have assembled the Event Horizon Telescope, a global very long baseline interferometry array observing at a wavelength of 1.3 mm. This allows us to reconstruct event-horizon-scale images of the supermassive black hole candidate in the center of the giant elliptical galaxy M87. We have resolved the central compact radio source as an asymmetric bright emission ring with a diameter of 42 ±3 μas, which is circular and encompasses a central depression in brightness with a flux ratio ≈10:1. The emission ring is recovered using different calibration and imaging schemes, with its diameter and width remaining stable over four different observations carried out in different days. Overall, the observed image is consistent with expectations for the shadow of a Kerr black hole as predicted by general relativity. The asymmetry in brightness in the ring can be explained in terms of relativistic beaming of the emission from a plasma rotating close to the speed of light around a black hole. We compare our images to an extensive library of ray-traced general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations of black holes and derive a central mass of M =(6.5 ±0.7) ×10
9
M
o
. Our radio-wave observations thus provide powerful evidence for the presence of supermassive black holes in centers of galaxies and as the central engines of active galactic nuclei. They also present a new tool to explore gravity in its most extreme limit and on a mass scale that was so far not accessible.
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U2 - 10.3847/2041-8213/ab0ec7
DO - 10.3847/2041-8213/ab0ec7
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85064523200
VL - 875
JO - Astrophysical Journal Letters
JF - Astrophysical Journal Letters
SN - 2041-8205
IS - 1
M1 - L1
ER -