First M87 Event Horizon Telescope Results. VIII. Magnetic Field Structure near The Event Horizon
Journal article, 2021
Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) observations at 230 GHz have now imaged polarized emission around the supermassive black hole in M87 on event-horizon scales. This polarized synchrotron radiation probes the structure of magnetic fields and the plasma properties near the black hole. Here we compare the resolved polarization structure observed by the EHT, along with simultaneous unresolved observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, to expectations from theoretical models. The low fractional linear polarization in the resolved image suggests that the polarization is scrambled on scales smaller than the EHT beam, which we attribute to Faraday rotation internal to the emission region. We estimate the average density n(e) similar to 10(4-7) cm(-3), magnetic field strength B similar to 1-30 G, and electron temperature T-e similar to (1-12) x 10(10) K of the radiating plasma in a simple one-zone emission model. We show that the net azimuthal linear polarization pattern may result from organized, poloidal magnetic fields in the emission region. In a quantitative comparison with a large library of simulated polarimetric images from general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (GRMHD) simulations, we identify a subset of physical models that can explain critical features of the polarimetric EHT observations while producing a relativistic jet of sufficient power. The consistent GRMHD models are all of magnetically arrested accretion disks, where near-horizon magnetic fields are dynamically important. We use the models to infer a mass accretion rate onto the black hole in M87 of (3-20) x 10(-4) M yr(-1).
Radio jets
Kerr black holes
Relativistic jets
Radiative transfer
Magnetic fields
Black holes
Plasma astrophysics
Accretion
Magnetohydrodynamics
Jets
Polarimetry
Event horizons
Author
Kazunori Akiyama
Juan Carlos Algaba
Antxon Alberdi
Walter Alef
Richard Anantua
Keiichi Asada
Rebecca Azulay
Anne-Kathrin Baczko
David Ball
Mislav Balokovic
John Barrett
Bradford A. Benson
Dan Bintley
Lindy Blackburn
Raymond Blundell
Wilfred Boland
Katherine L. Bouman
Geoffrey C. Bower
Hope Boyce
Michael Bremer
Christiaan D. Brinkerink
Roger Brissenden
Silke Britzen
Avery E. Broderick
Dominique Broguiere
Thomas Bronzwaer
Do-Young Byun
John E. Carlstrom
Andrew Chael
Chi-kwan Chan
Shami Chatterjee
Koushik Chatterjee
Ming-Tang Chen
Yongjun Chen
Paul M. Chesler
Ilje Cho
Pierre Christian
John Conway
James M. Cordes
Thomas M. Crawford
Geoffrey B. Crew
Alejandro Cruz-Osorio
Yuzhu Cui
Jordy Davelaar
Mariafelicia De Laurentis
Roger Deane
Jessica Dempsey
Gregory Desvignes
Jason Dexter
Sheperd S. Doeleman
Ralph P. Eatough
Heino Falcke
Joseph Farah
Vincent L. Fish
Ed Fomalont
H. Alyson Ford
Raquel Fraga-Encinas
Per Friberg
Christian M. Fromm
Antonio Fuentes
Peter Galison
Charles F. Gammie
Roberto Garcia
Zachary Gelles
Olivier Gentaz
Boris Georgiev
Ciriaco Goddi
Roman Gold
Jose L. Gomez
Gomez-Ruiz
Minfeng Gu
Mark Gurwell
Kazuhiro Hada
Daryl Haggard
Michael H. Hecht
Ronald Hesper
Elizabeth Himwich
Luis C. Ho
Paul Ho
Mareki Honma
Chih-Wei L. Huang
Lei Huang
David H. Hughes
Shiro Ikeda
Makoto Inoue
Sara Issaoun
David J. James
Buell T. Jannuzi
Michael Janssen
Britton Jeter
Wu Jiang
Alejandra Jimenez-Rosales
Michael D. Johnson
Svetlana Jorstad
Taehyun Jung
Mansour Karami
Ramesh Karuppusamy
Tomohisa Kawashima
Garrett K. Keating
Mark Kettenis
Dong-Jin Kim
Jae-Young Kim
Jongsoo Kim
Junhan Kim
Motoki Kino
Jun Yi Koay
Yutaro Kofuji
Patrick M. Koch
Shoko Koyama
Michael Kramer
Carsten Kramer
Thomas P. Krichbaum
Cheng-Yu Kuo
Tod R. Lauer
Sang-Sung Lee
Aviad Levis
Yan-Rong Li
Zhiyuan Li
Michael Lindqvist
Rocco Lico
Greg Lindahl
Jun Liu
Kuo Liu
Elisabetta Liuzzo
Wen-Ping Lo
Andrei P. Lobanov
Laurent Loinard
Colin Lonsdale
Ru-Sen Lu
Nicholas R. MacDonald
Jirong Mao
Nicola Marchili
Sera Markoff
Daniel P. Marrone
Alan P. Marscher
Ivan Marti-Vidal
Satoki Matsushita
Lynn D. Matthews
Lia Medeiros
Karl M. Menten
Izumi Mizuno
Yosuke Mizuno
James M. Moran
Kotaro Moriyama
Monika Moscibrodzka
Cornelia Mueller
Gibwa Musoke
Alejandro Mus Mejias
Daniel Michalik
Andrew Nadolski
Hiroshi Nagai
Neil M. Nagar
Masanori Nakamura
Ramesh Narayan
Gopal Narayanan
Iniyan Natarajan
Antonios Nathanail
Joseph Neilsen
Roberto Neri
Chunchong Ni
Aristeidis Noutsos
Michael A. Nowak
Hiroki Okino
Hector Olivares
Gisela N. Ortiz-Leon
Tomoaki Oyama
Feryal Oze
Daniel C. M. Palumbo
Jongho Park
Nimesh Patel
Ue-Li Pen
Dominic W. Pesce
Vincent Pietu
Richard Plambeck
Aleksandar PopStefanija
Oliver Porth
Felix M. Poetzl
Ben Prather
Jorge A. Preciado-Lopez
Dimitrios Psaltis
Hung-Yi Pu
Venkatessh Ramakrishnan
Ramprasad Rao
Mark G. Rawlings
Alexander W. Raymond
Luciano Rezzolla
Angelo Ricarte
Bart Ripperda
Freek Roelofs
Alan Rogers
Eduardo Ros
Mel Rose
Arash Roshanineshat
Helge Rottmann
Alan L. Roy
Chet Ruszczyk
Kazi L. J. Rygl
Salvador Sanchez
David Sanchez-Arguelles
Mahito Sasada
Tuomas Savolainen
F. Peter Schloerb
Karl-Friedrich Schuster
Lijing Shao
Zhiqiang Shen
Des Small
Bong Won Sohn
Jason SooHoo
He Sun
Fumie Tazaki
Alexandra J. Tetarenko
Paul Tiede
Remo P. J. Tilanus
Michael Titus
Kenji Toma
Pablo Torne
Tyler Trent
Efthalia Traianou
Sascha Trippe
Ilse van Bemmel
Huib Jan van Langevelde
Daniel R. van Rossum
Jan Wagner
Derek Ward-Thompson
John Wardle
Jonathan Weintroub
Norbert Wex
Robert Wharton
Maciek Wielgus
George N. Wong
Qingwen Wu
Doosoo Yoon
Andre Young
Ken Young
Ziri Younsi
Feng Yuan
Ye-Fei Yuan
J. Anton Zensus
Guang-Yao Zhao
Shan-Shan Zhao
Astrophysical Journal Letters
2041-8205 (ISSN) 2041-8213 (eISSN)
Vol. 910 1 L13Subject Categories (SSIF 2011)
Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences
Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology
Fusion, Plasma and Space Physics
DOI
10.3847/2041-8213/abe4de