Related papers: Measuring Photon Rings with the ngEHT
The bright ring-like structures observed in the images of M87* and SgrA* captured by the Event Horizon Telescope strongly support the validity of general relativity. Lensed images of the emission region, often referred to as photon rings in…
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration has successfully produced images of two supermassive black holes, enabling novel tests of black holes and their accretion flows on horizon scales. The EHT has so far published total intensity…
Very-long baseline interferometric observations have resolved structure on scales of only a few Schwarzschild radii around the supermassive black holes at the centers of our Galaxy and M87. In the near future, such observations are expected…
The Black Hole Explorer (BHEX), an orbiting, multi-band, millimeter radio-telescope, in hybrid combination with millimeter terrestrial radio-telescopes, is designed to discover and measure the thin photon ring around the supermassive black…
Recently, the image of a Schwarzschild black hole with an accretion disk has been revisited, and it showed that the "photon ring", defined as highly bent light rays that intersect the disk plane more than twice, is extremely narrow and…
Light orbiting an accreting black hole may impact the disk or jet multiple times before escaping to the observer, at a variety of angles with respect to the local magnetic field. In this letter, we characterize the imprints of these long…
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration recently published the first images of the supermassive black holes in the cores of the Messier 87 and Milky Way galaxies. These observations have provided a new means to study supermassive…
The recent advent of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) has made direct imaging of supermassive black holes a reality. Simulated images of black holes produced via general relativistic ray tracing and radiative transfer provide a key…
We show that very-long-baseline-interferometry (VLBI) observations of supermassive black holes will allow us to test the fundamental principles of General Relativity (GR). GR is based on the universality of gravity and Einstein's…
The central supermassive black hole of the galaxy M87 is currently a target for precision spin measurement using high-resolution, horizon-scale imaging. Such observations aim to resolve the first lensed (${n}~{=}~{1}$) sub-image of the…
We present a baseline science operations plan for the Black Hole Explorer (BHEX), a space mission concept aiming to confirm the existence of the predicted sharp ``photon ring" resulting from strongly lensed photon trajectories around black…
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is a very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) array that comprises millimeter- and submillimeter-wavelength telescopes separated by distances comparable to the diameter of the Earth. At a nominal operating…
We propose a simple, analytic dual-cone accretion model for horizon scale images of the cores of Low-Luminosity Active Galactic Nuclei (LLAGN), including those observed by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). Our underlying model is of…
The images of supermassive black holes surrounded by optically-thin, radiatively-inefficient accretion flows, like those observed with the Event Horizon Telescope, are characterized by a bright ring of emission surrounding the black-hole…
We present estimates for the number of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) for which the next-generation Event Horizon Telescope (ngEHT) can identify the black hole ``shadow,'' along with estimates for how many black hole masses and spins the…
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is a millimeter very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) array that has imaged the apparent shadows of the supermassive black holes M87* and Sagittarius A*. Polarimetric data from these observations contain…
There are now multiple direct probes of the region near black hole horizons, including direct imaging with the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). As a result, it is now of considerable interest to identify what aspects of the underlying…
The black hole photon ring is a prime target for upcoming space-based VLBI missions seeking to image the fine structure of astrophysical black holes. The classical Lyapunov exponents of the corresponding nearly bound null geodesics control…
Submillimeter interferometry has the potential to image supermassive black holes on event horizon scales, providing tests of the theory of general relativity and increasing our understanding of black hole accretion processes. The Event…
The imaging fidelity of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is currently determined by its sparse baseline coverage. In particular, EHT coverage is dominated by long baselines, and is highly sensitive to atmospheric conditions and loss of…