Imaging supermassive black hole shadows with a global very long baseline interferometry array

Abstract

The imaging of two supermassive black holes by the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration proved to a new level the correctness of Einstein's general relativity, regarding its prediction of black hole shadows in the highly curved spacetime regime.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Event Horizon Telescope / very long baseline interferometry / black hole / black hole shadow

References

[1] A.Einstein, The Field Equations of Gravitation, Sitzungsber. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. Berlin ( Math. Phys. ) 1915, 844 ( 1915)

[2] K.Schwarzschild, On the gravitational field of a mass point according to Einstein’s theory, Sitzungsber. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. Berlin ( Math. Phys .) 1916, 189 ( 1916), arXiv: physics/9905030

[3] R.P. Kerr. Gravitational field of a spinning mass as an example of algebraically special metrics. Phys. Rev. Lett. , 1963, 11 : 237

[4] S.Chandrasekhar, The Mathematical Theory of Black Holes, Oxford University Press, 1983

[5] J.P. Luminet. Image of a spherical black hole with thin accretion disk. Astron. Astrophys. , 1979, 75 : 228

[6] H.Falcke F.Melia E.Agol, Viewing the shadow of the black hole at the Galactic center, Astrophys. J. Lett . 528, L13 ( 2000), arXiv: astro-ph/9912263

[7] K.Akiyama .(Event Horizon Telescope), ., First M87 Event Horizon Telescope results (I): The shadow of the supermassive black hole, Astrophys. J. Lett . 875, L1 ( 2019), arXiv: 1906.11238 [astro-ph.GA]

[8] K.Akiyama, .(Event Horizon Telescope). . First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope results (I): The shadow of the supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way. Astrophys. J. Lett. , 2022, 930 : L12

[9] S.Doeleman E.Agol D.Backer F.Baganoff G.C. Bower A.Broderick A.Fabian V.Fish C.Gammie P.Ho M. Honman T.Krichbaum A.Loeb D.Marrone M.Reid A.Rogers I.Shapiro P.Strittmatter R.Tilanus J.Weintroub A.Whitney M.Wright L.Ziurys, Imaging an event horizon: Submm-VLBI of a super massive black hole, in: Astro2010: The Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey, Vol. 2010, p. 68, arXiv: 0906.3899 [astro-ph.CO] (2009)

[10] K.Akiyama .(Event Horizon Telescope), ., First M87 Event Horizon Telescope results (VI): The shadow and mass of the central black hole, Astrophys. J. Lett . 875, L6 ( 2019), arXiv: 1906.11243 [astro-ph.GA]

[11] K.Akiyama, .(Event Horizon Telescope). . First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope results (III): Imaging of the Galactic center supermassive black hole. Astrophys. J. Lett. , 2022, 930 : L14

[12] K.Akiyama, .(Event Horizon Telescope). . First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope results (IV): variability, morphology, and black hole mass. Astrophys. J. Lett. , 2022, 930 : L15

[13] T.Do, ., Relativistic redshift of the star S0-2 orbiting the Galactic center supermassive black hole, Science 365, 664 ( 2019), arXiv: 1907.10731 [astro-ph.GA]

[14] R.Abuter .(GRAVITY), ., Detection of the Schwarzschild precession in the orbit of the star S2 near the Galactic centre massive black hole, Astron. Astrophys . 636, L5 ( 2020), arXiv: 2004.07187 [astro-ph.GA]

[15] K.Akiyama, .(Event Horizon Telescope). . First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope results (VI): Testing the black hole metric. Astrophys. J. Lett. , 2022, 930 : L17

[16] P.Kocherlakota .(Event Horizon Telescope), ., Constraints on black-hole charges with the 2017 EHT observations of M87*, Phys. Rev. D 103, 104047 ( 2021), arXiv: 2105.09343 [gr-qc]

[17] J.Kormendy L.C. Ho, Coevolution (Or not) of supermassive black holes and host galaxies, Ann. Rev. Astron. Astrophys . 51, 511 ( 2013), arXiv: 1304.7762 [astro-ph.CO]

[18] K.Akiyama . (Event Horizon Telescope), ., First M87 Event Horizon Telescope results (VIII): Magnetic field structure near the Event Horizon, Astrophys. J. Lett . 910, L13 ( 2021), arXiv: 2105.01173 [astro-ph.HE]

[19] C.M. Fromm Y.Mizuno Z.Younsi H.Olivares O.Porth M.De Laurentis H.Falcke M.Kramer L.Rezzolla, Using space-VLBI to probe gravity around Sgr A*, Astron. Astrophys . 649, A116 ( 2021), arXiv: 2101.08618 [astro-ph.HE]

[20] R.Abbott .(LIGO Scientific VIRGO KAGRA), ., GWTC-3: Compact binary coalescences observed by LIGO and Virgo during the second part of the third observing run, arXiv: 2111.03606 [gr-qc] ( 2021)

[21] R.Abbott .(LIGO Scientific VIRGO KAGRA), ., Tests of general relativity with GWTC-3, arXiv: 2112.06861 [gr-qc] ( 2021)

[22] D.Psaltis N.Wex M.Kramer, A quantitative test of the No-hair theorem with Sgr A* using stars, pulsars, and the Event Horizon Telescope, Astrophys. J . 818, 121 ( 2016), arXiv: 1510.00394 [astro-ph.HE]

[23] G.C. Bower S.Chatterjee J.Cordes P.Demorest J.S. Deneva J.Dexter M.Kramer J.Lazio S.Ransom L.Shao N.Wex R.Wharton, Galactic center pulsars with the ngVLA, ASP Conf. Ser . 517, 793 ( 2018), arXiv: 1810.06623 [astro-ph.HE]

[24] G.Bower, S.Chatterjee, J.Cordes, P.Demorest, J.S. Deneva, J.Dexter, R.Eatough, M.Kramer, J.Lazio, K.Liu, S.Ransom, L.Shao, N.Wex, R.Wharton. Fundamental physics with Galactic center pulsars. Bull. Am. Astron. Soc. , 2019, 51 : 438

Acknowledgements

I thank colleagues in the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration for fantastic work and stimulating discussions. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11991053, 11975027, and 11721303), the National SKA Program of China (Grant No. 2020SKA0120300), and the Max Planck Partner Group Program funded by the Max Planck Society.

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2022 Higher Education Press