TY - JOUR

T1 - First M87 Event Horizon Telescope Results. I. The Shadow of the Supermassive Black Hole

AU - Event Horizon Telescope Collaborat

AU - Akiyama, Kazunori

AU - Alberdi, Antxon

AU - Alef, Walter

AU - Asada, Keiichi

AU - Azulay, Rebecca

AU - Baczko, Anne-Kathrin

AU - Ball, David

AU - Balokovic, 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 - De Laurentis, Mariafelicia

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 - Friberg, Per

AU - Fromm, Christian M.

AU - Эрштадт, Светлана Георгиевна

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.

KW - accretion, accretion disks

KW - black hole physics

KW - galaxies: active

KW - galaxies: individual (M87)

KW - galaxies: jets

KW - gravitation

KW - SAGITTARIUS-A-ASTERISK

KW - ADVECTION-DOMINATED ACCRETION

KW - GHZ VLBI OBSERVATIONS

KW - RADIO-SOURCES

KW - GALACTIC-CENTER

KW - ENERGY-DISTRIBUTIONS

KW - GRMHD SIMULATIONS

KW - FARADAY-ROTATION

KW - HIGH-RESOLUTION

KW - IONIZED-GAS

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85064523200&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - http://stacks.iop.org/2041-8205/875/i=1/a=L1?key=crossref.8b277503073a0a9e72958f0aba518652

UR - http://www.mendeley.com/research/first-m87-event-horizon-telescope-results-i-shadow-supermassive-black-hole

U2 - 10.3847/2041-8213/ab0ec7

DO - 10.3847/2041-8213/ab0ec7

M3 - статья

VL - 875

JO - Astrophysical Journal Letters

JF - Astrophysical Journal Letters

SN - 2041-8205

IS - 1

M1 - L1

ER -