Imaging the Black Hole Silhouette of M87: Implications for Jet Formation and Black Hole Spin

Abstract

The silhouette cast by the horizon of the supermassive black hole in M87 can now be resolved with the emerging millimeter very-long baseline interferometry (VLBI) capability. Despite being ~2000 times farther away than SgrA* (the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky-Way and the primary target for horizon-scale imaging), M87's much larger black hole mass results in a horizon angular scale roughly half that of SgrA*'s, providing another practical target for direct imaging. However, unlike SgrA*, M87 exhibits a powerful radio jet, providing an opportunity to study jet formation physics on horizon scales. We employ a simple, qualitatively correct force-free jet model to explore the expected high-resolution images of M87 at wavelengths of 1.3mm and 0.87mm (230GHz and 345GHz), for a variety of jet parameters. We show that future VLBI data will be able to constrain the size of the jet footprint, the jet collimation rate, and the black hole spin. Polarization will further probe the structure of the jet's magnetic field and its effect on the emitting gas. Horizon-scale imaging of M87 and SgrA* will enable for the first time the empirical exploration of the relationship between the mass and spin of a black hole and the characteristics of the gas inflow/outflow around it.

18 pages, 7 figures, accepted by ApJ

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• First M87 Event Horizon Telescope Results. II. Array and Instrumentation
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• High-Sensitivity 86GHz (3.5mm) VLBI Observations of M87: Deep Imaging of the Jet Base at a 10 Schwarzschild-Radius Resolution
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• Coupled jet-disk model for Sgr A*: explaining the flat-spectrum radio core with GRMHD simulations of jets
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• Super-resolution Full Polarimetric Imaging for Radio Interferometry with Sparse Modeling
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• On the Calibration of Full-polarization 86GHz Global VLBI Observations
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• Testing the No-Hair Theorem with Observations of Black Holes in the Electromagnetic Spectrum
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• Fast-spinning black holes inferred from symmetrically limb-brightened radio jets
• Unraveling circular polarimetric images of magnetically arrested accretion flows near event horizon of a black hole
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• The Chinese space millimeter-wavelength VLBI array - a step toward imaging the most compact astronomical objects
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• Spherical photon orbits in the field of Kerr naked singularities
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• Properties of Trans-fast Magnetosonic Jets in Black Hole Magnetospheres
• Positron Effects on Polarized Images and Spectra from Jet and Accretion Flow Models of M87* and Sgr A*
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• An accretion-jet model for M87: interpreting the spectral energy distribution and Faraday rotation measure
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• Probing the central black hole in M87 with gamma-rays
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• Polarization Imaging of M87 Jets by General Relativistic Radiative Transfer Calculation based on GRMHD Simulations
• A Mechanism for Triple-Ridge Emission Structure of AGN Jets
• Gravitational Lensing of a star by a rotating black hole
• PRECL: A new method for interferometry imaging from closure phase
• Observable Emission Features of Black Hole GRMHD Jets on Event Horizon Scales
• Signatures of Black Hole Spin and Plasma Acceleration in Jet Polarimetry
• Seeing Black Holes : from the Computer to the Telescope
• Differentiating Disk and Black Hole Driven Jets with EHT Images of Variability in M87
• Jets and Rings in Images of Spinning Black Holes
• Constraining the size of the dark region around the M87 black hole by space-VLBI observations
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• Images and Spectra of Time Dependent Two Component Advective Flow in Presence of Outflows
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• QED Effects on Kerr-Newman Black Hole Shadows
• Imaging the event horizon of M87* from space on different timescales
• Semi-analytic studies of accretion disk and magnetic field geometry in M87*
• X-ray interferometry with transmissive beam combiners for ultra-high angular resolution astronomy
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• A Jet Source of Event Horizon Telescope Correlated Flux in M87
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