First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope Results. I. The Shadow of the Supermassive…

Published: 2022-05-01
Venue: The Astrophysical Journal Letters, vol. 930, no. 2, pp. L12
Cited by: 1,861
Open access: Yes, gold
DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ac6674

Abstract

We present the first Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) observations of Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the Galactic center source associated with a supermassive black hole. These observations were conducted in 2017 using a global interferometric array of eight telescopes operating at a wavelength of λ = 1.3 mm. The EHT data resolve a compact emission region with intrahour variability. A variety of imaging and modeling analyses all support an image that is dominated by a bright, thick ring with a diameter of 51.8 ± 2.3 μ as (68% credible interval). The ring has modest azimuthal brightness asymmetry and a comparatively dim interior. Using a large suite of numerical simulations, we demonstrate that the EHT images of Sgr A* are consistent with the expected appearance of a Kerr black hole with mass ∼4 × 10 6 M ⊙ , which is inferred to exist at this location based on previous infrared observations of individual stellar orbits, as well as maser proper-motion studies. Our model comparisons disfavor scenarios where the black hole is viewed at high inclination ( i > 50°), as well as nonspinning black holes and those with retrograde accretion disks. Our results provide direct evidence for the presence of a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, and for the first time we connect the predictions from dynamical measurements of stellar orbits on scales of 10 3 –10 5 gravitational radii to event-horizon-scale images and variability. Furthermore, a comparison with the EHT results for the supermassive black hole M87* shows consistency with the predictions of general relativity spanning over three orders of magnitude in central mass.

Abstract

@article{akiyama2022first, title = {{First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope Results. I. The Shadow of the Supermassive Black Hole in the Center of the Milky Way}}, author = {Kazunori Akiyama and A. Alberdi and W. Alef and Juan Carlos Algaba and Richard Anantua and Keiichi Asada and Rebecca Azulay and U. Bach and Anne-Kathrin Baczko and David R. Ball and Mislav Baloković and John Barrett and Michi Bauböck and Bradford A. Benson and Dan Bintley and Lindy Blackburn and R. Blundell and Katherine L. Bouman and Geoffrey C. Bower and Hope Boyce and Michael Bremer and Christiaan D. Brinkerink and Roger Brissenden and S. Britzen and Avery E. Broderick and Dominique Broguière and Thomas Bronzwaer and Sandra Bustamante and Do‐Young Byun and J. E. Carlstrom and Chiara Ceccobello and Andrew Chael and Chi‐kwan Chan and Koushik Chatterjee and Shami Chatterjee and Ming‐Tang Chen and Yongjun 永军 Chen 陈 and Xiaopeng Cheng and Ilje Cho and Pierre Christian and Nicholas S. Conroy and John Edward Conway and J. M. Cordes and T. M. Crawford and G. Crew and Alejandro Cruz-Osorio and Yuzhu Cui and Jordy Davelaar and Mariafelicia De Laurentis and Roger P Deane and Jessica T. Dempsey and G. Desvignes and Jason Dexter and Vedant Dhruv and Sheperd S. Doeleman and Sean Dougal and Sergio A. Dzib and Ralph P. Eatough and Razieh Emami and Heino D. Falcke and Joseph Farah and Vincent L. Fish and Edward B. Fomalont and H. Alyson Ford and Raquel Fraga-Encinas and William T. Freeman and Per Friberg and Christian M. Fromm and Antonio Fuentes and Peter Louis Galison and Charles F. Gammie and Roberto García and Olivier Gentaz and Boris Georgiev and C. Goddi and Roman Gold and Arturo I. Gómez-Ruiz and José Luis Gómez and Minfeng Gu and Mark Gurwell and Kazuhiro Hada and Daryl Haggard and Kari Haworth and M. H. Hecht and Ronald Hesper and Dirk Heumann and Luis C. Ho and Paul T. P. Ho and Mareki Honma and Chih-Wei L. Huang and Lei Huang and David H. Hughes and Shiro Ikeda and C. M. Violette Impellizzeri and Makoto Inoue and Sara Issaoun and David J. James and Buell T. Jannuzi and Michaël Janssen and Britton Jeter and Wu Jiang and Alejandra Jiménez-Rosales and Michael D. Johnson and Svetlana G. Jorstad and Abhishek V. Joshi and Taehyun Jung and Mansour Karami and Ramesh Karuppusamy and Tomohisa Kawashima and Garrett K. Keating and Mark Kettenis and Dong-Jin Kim and Jae-Young Kim and Jongsoo Kim and Junhan Kim and Motoki Kino and Jun Yi Koay and Prashant Kocherlakota and Yutaro Kofuji and Patrick M. Koch and Shoko Koyama and Carsten Kramer and M. Krämer and T. P. Krichbaum and Cheng‐Yu Kuo and Noemi La Bella and Tod R. Lauer and Daeyoung Lee and Sang-Sung Lee and Po Kin Leung and Aviad Levis and Zhiyuan 志远 Li 李 and Rocco Lico and Greg Lindahl and M. Lindqvist and Mikhail Lisakov and Jun 俊 Liu 刘 and Kuo Liu and Elisabetta Liuzzo and Wen-Ping Lo and Andrei P. Lobanov and Laurent Loinard and C. J. Lonsdale and Rusen S. Lu and Jirong 基荣 Mao 毛 and N. Marchili and Sera Markoff and Daniel P. Marrone and Alan P. Marscher and Iván Martí-Vidal and Satoki Matsushita and Lynn D. Matthews and Lia Medeiros and Karl M. Menten and Daniel Michalik and Izumi Mizuno and Yosuke Mizuno and James M. Moran and Kotaro Moriyama and Monika A. Mościbrodzka and Cornelia Müller and Alejandro Mus and Gibwa Musoke and I. Myserlis and Andrew Nadolski and Hiroshi Nagai and Neil M. Nagar and Masanori Nakamura and Ramesh Narayan and Gopal Narayanan and Iniyan Natarajan and Antonios Nathanail and Santiago Navarro Fuentes and Joey Neilsen and R. Neri and Chunchong Ni and A. Noutsos and Michael A. Nowak and Junghwan Oh and Hiroki Okino and Héctor Olivares and Gisela N. Ortiz-León and Tomoaki Oyama and Feryal Özel and Daniel C. M. Palumbo and Georgios Filippos Paraschos and Jongho Park and Harriet A. L. Parsons and Nimesh Patel and Ue‐Li Pen and Dominic W. Pesce and Vincent Piétu and R. L. Plambeck and Aleksandar PopStefanija and Oliver Porth and Felix M. Pötzl and Ben S. Prather and Jorge A. Preciado-López and Dimitrios Psaltis and Hung-Yi Pu and Venkatessh Ramakrishnan and Ramprasad Rao and Mark G. Rawlings and Alexander W. Raymond and Luciano Rezzolla and Angelo Ricarte and Bart Ripperda and Freek Roelofs and Alan E. E. Rogers and Eduardo Ros and Cristina Romero-Cañizales and Arash Roshanineshat and Helge Rottmann and Alan L. Roy and Ignacio Ruiz and Chet Ruszczyk and Kazi L. J. Rygl and Salvador Sánchez and David Sánchez-Argüelles and Miguel Sánchez-Portal and Mahito Sasada and Kaushik Satapathy and T. Savolainen and F. Peter Schloerb and Jonathan Schonfeld and Karl-Friedrich Schuster and Lijing Shao and Zhiqiang Q. Shen and Des Small and Bong Won Sohn and J. SooHoo Whittier and Kamal Souccar and He Sun and Fumie Tazaki and Alexandra J. Tetarenko and Paul Tiede and Remo P. J. Tilanus and Michael Titus and Pablo Torné and Efthalia Traianou and Tyler Trent and Sascha Trippe and Matthew Turk and Ilse M. van Bemmel and Huib Jan van Langevelde and Daniel R. van Rossum and Jesse Vos and Jan Wagner and Derek Ward-Thompson and John F. C. Wardle and Jonathan Weintroub and Norbert Wex and Robert Wharton and Maciek Wielgus and K. Wiik and Gunther Witzel and Michael F. Wondrak and George N. Wong and Qingwen 庆文 Wu 吴 and Paul Yamaguchi and Doosoo Yoon and André Young and Ken Young and Ziri Younsi and Feng 峰 Yuan 袁 and Ye-Fei 业飞 Yuan 袁 and J. A. Zensus and Shuo Zhang and Guang-Yao Zhao and Shan-Shan Zhao and C. Agurto and Alexander Allardi and Rodrigo Amestica and Juan Pablo Araneda and Oriel Arriagada and Jennie L. Berghuis and Alessandra Bertarini and Ryan M. Berthold and J. Blanchard and Ken Brown and Mauricio Cárdenas and Michael Cantzler and Patricio Caro and Edgar Castillo-Domínguez and Tin Lok Chan and Chih-Cheng Chang and Dominic O. Chang and Shu-Hao Chang and Song-Chu Chang and Chung-Chen Chen and Ryan Chilson and Tim C. Chuter and Mirosław Ciechanowicz and Edgar Colín-Beltrán and Iain M. Coulson and Joseph Crowley and Nathalie Degenaar and Sven Dornbusch and Carlos A. Durán and Wendeline B. Everett and Aaron Faber and Karl Förster and Miriam Fuchs and David Michel Gale and Gertie Geertsema and E. Gómez González and Dave A. Graham and Frédéric Gueth and N. W. Halverson and Chih-Chiang Han and Kuo-Chang Han and Yutaka Hasegawa and José Luis Hernández-Rebollar and Cristian Herrera and Rubén Herrero-Illana and S. Heyminck and Akihiko Hirota and James Hoge and Shelbi Hostler Schimpf and Ryan Howie and Yau-De Huang and Homin Jiang and H. Jinchi and John David and Kimihiro Kimura and Thomas Klein and Derek Y. Kubo and John T. Kuroda and Caleb Kwon and Richard Lacasse and Robert A. Laing and Erik M. Leitch and Chao-Te Li and Ching-Tang Liu and Kuan-Yu Liu and L. C.-C. Lin and Li-Ming Lu and F. Mac-Auliffe and Pierre L. Martin-Cocher and Callie Matulonis and John K. Maute and Hugo Messias and Zheng Meyer-Zhao and Alfredo Montaña and Francisco Miguel Montenegro-Montes and William Montgomerie and Marcos Emir Moreno Nolasco and D. Muders and Hiroaki Nishioka and Timothy Norton and George U. Nystrom and Hideo Ogawa and Rodrigo Olivares and Peter Oshiro and Juan Pablo Pérez-Beaupuits and Rodrigo Parra and Neil M. Phillips and Michael Poirier and Nicolas Pradel and Richard Qiu and Philippe A. Raffin and Alexandra S. Rahlin and Jorge Ramírez and Sean M. Ressler and Mark T. Reynolds and Iván Rodríguez-Montoya and Alejandro F. Sáez-Madaín and Jorge Santana and Paul Shaw and Leslie E. Shirkey and Kevin M. Silva and William Snow and Don Sousa and T. K. Sridharan and William G. Stahm and Antony A. Stark and John Test and Karl J. E. Torstensson and Paulina Venegas and Craig A. Walther and Ta-Shun S. Wei and Christopher J. White and G. Wieching and Rudy A. D. Wijnands and Jan G. A. Wouterloot and Chen-Yu Yu and Wei Yu (于威) and Milagros Zeballos}, journal = {The Astrophysical Journal Letters}, year = {2022}, volume = {930}, number = {2}, pages = {L12}, doi = {10.3847/2041-8213/ac6674}, url = {https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ac6674} }

TY - JOUR AU - Akiyama, Kazunori AU - Alberdi, A. AU - Alef, W. AU - Algaba, Juan Carlos AU - Anantua, Richard AU - Asada, Keiichi AU - Azulay, Rebecca AU - Bach, U. AU - Baczko, Anne-Kathrin AU - Ball, David R. AU - Baloković, Mislav AU - Barrett, John AU - Bauböck, Michi AU - Benson, Bradford A. AU - Bintley, Dan AU - Blackburn, Lindy AU - Blundell, R. AU - Bouman, Katherine L. AU - Bower, Geoffrey C. AU - Boyce, Hope AU - Bremer, Michael AU - Brinkerink, Christiaan D. AU - Brissenden, Roger AU - Britzen, S. AU - Broderick, Avery E. AU - Broguière, Dominique AU - Bronzwaer, Thomas AU - Bustamante, Sandra AU - Byun, Do‐Young AU - Carlstrom, J. E. AU - Ceccobello, Chiara AU - Chael, Andrew AU - Chan, Chi‐kwan AU - Chatterjee, Koushik AU - Chatterjee, Shami AU - Chen, Ming‐Tang AU - 陈, Yongjun 永军 Chen AU - Cheng, Xiaopeng AU - Cho, Ilje AU - Christian, Pierre AU - Conroy, Nicholas S. AU - Conway, John Edward AU - Cordes, J. M. AU - Crawford, T. M. AU - Crew, G. AU - Cruz-Osorio, Alejandro AU - Cui, Yuzhu AU - Davelaar, Jordy AU - Laurentis, Mariafelicia De AU - Deane, Roger P AU - Dempsey, Jessica T. AU - Desvignes, G. AU - Dexter, Jason AU - Dhruv, Vedant AU - Doeleman, Sheperd S. AU - Dougal, Sean AU - Dzib, Sergio A. AU - Eatough, Ralph P. AU - Emami, Razieh AU - Falcke, Heino D. AU - Farah, Joseph AU - Fish, Vincent L. AU - Fomalont, Edward B. AU - Ford, H. Alyson AU - Fraga-Encinas, Raquel AU - Freeman, William T. AU - Friberg, Per AU - Fromm, Christian M. AU - Fuentes, Antonio AU - Galison, Peter Louis AU - Gammie, Charles F. AU - García, Roberto AU - Gentaz, Olivier AU - Georgiev, Boris AU - Goddi, C. AU - Gold, Roman AU - Gómez-Ruiz, Arturo I. AU - Gómez, José Luis AU - Gu, Minfeng AU - Gurwell, Mark AU - Hada, Kazuhiro AU - Haggard, Daryl AU - Haworth, Kari AU - Hecht, M. H. AU - Hesper, Ronald AU - Heumann, Dirk AU - Ho, Luis C. AU - Ho, Paul T. P. AU - Honma, Mareki AU - Huang, Chih-Wei L. AU - Huang, Lei AU - Hughes, David H. AU - Ikeda, Shiro AU - Impellizzeri, C. M. Violette AU - Inoue, Makoto AU - Issaoun, Sara AU - James, David J. AU - Jannuzi, Buell T. AU - Janssen, Michaël AU - Jeter, Britton AU - Jiang, Wu AU - Jiménez-Rosales, Alejandra AU - Johnson, Michael D. AU - Jorstad, Svetlana G. AU - Joshi, Abhishek V. AU - Jung, Taehyun AU - Karami, Mansour AU - Karuppusamy, Ramesh AU - Kawashima, Tomohisa AU - Keating, Garrett K. AU - Kettenis, Mark AU - Kim, Dong-Jin AU - Kim, Jae-Young AU - Kim, Jongsoo AU - Kim, Junhan AU - Kino, Motoki AU - Koay, Jun Yi AU - Kocherlakota, Prashant AU - Kofuji, Yutaro AU - Koch, Patrick M. AU - Koyama, Shoko AU - Kramer, Carsten AU - Krämer, M. AU - Krichbaum, T. P. AU - Kuo, Cheng‐Yu AU - Bella, Noemi La AU - Lauer, Tod R. AU - Lee, Daeyoung AU - Lee, Sang-Sung AU - Leung, Po Kin AU - Levis, Aviad AU - 李, Zhiyuan 志远 Li AU - Lico, Rocco AU - Lindahl, Greg AU - Lindqvist, M. AU - Lisakov, Mikhail AU - 刘, Jun 俊 Liu AU - Liu, Kuo AU - Liuzzo, Elisabetta AU - Lo, Wen-Ping AU - Lobanov, Andrei P. AU - Loinard, Laurent AU - Lonsdale, C. J. AU - Lu, Rusen S. AU - 毛, Jirong 基荣 Mao AU - Marchili, N. AU - Markoff, Sera AU - Marrone, Daniel P. AU - Marscher, Alan P. AU - Martí-Vidal, Iván AU - Matsushita, Satoki AU - Matthews, Lynn D. AU - Medeiros, Lia AU - Menten, Karl M. AU - Michalik, Daniel AU - Mizuno, Izumi AU - Mizuno, Yosuke AU - Moran, James M. AU - Moriyama, Kotaro AU - Mościbrodzka, Monika A. AU - Müller, Cornelia AU - Mus, Alejandro AU - Musoke, Gibwa AU - Myserlis, I. AU - Nadolski, Andrew AU - Nagai, Hiroshi AU - Nagar, Neil M. AU - Nakamura, Masanori AU - Narayan, Ramesh AU - Narayanan, Gopal AU - Natarajan, Iniyan AU - Nathanail, Antonios AU - Fuentes, Santiago Navarro AU - Neilsen, Joey AU - Neri, R. AU - Ni, Chunchong AU - Noutsos, A. AU - Nowak, Michael A. AU - Oh, Junghwan AU - Okino, Hiroki AU - Olivares, Héctor AU - Ortiz-León, Gisela N. AU - Oyama, Tomoaki AU - Özel, Feryal AU - Palumbo, Daniel C. M. AU - Paraschos, Georgios Filippos AU - Park, Jongho AU - Parsons, Harriet A. L. AU - Patel, Nimesh AU - Pen, Ue‐Li AU - Pesce, Dominic W. AU - Piétu, Vincent AU - Plambeck, R. L. AU - PopStefanija, Aleksandar AU - Porth, Oliver AU - Pötzl, Felix M. AU - Prather, Ben S. AU - Preciado-López, Jorge A. AU - Psaltis, Dimitrios AU - Pu, Hung-Yi AU - Ramakrishnan, Venkatessh AU - Rao, Ramprasad AU - Rawlings, Mark G. AU - Raymond, Alexander W. AU - Rezzolla, Luciano AU - Ricarte, Angelo AU - Ripperda, Bart AU - Roelofs, Freek AU - Rogers, Alan E. E. AU - Ros, Eduardo AU - Romero-Cañizales, Cristina AU - Roshanineshat, Arash AU - Rottmann, Helge AU - Roy, Alan L. AU - Ruiz, Ignacio AU - Ruszczyk, Chet AU - Rygl, Kazi L. J. AU - Sánchez, Salvador AU - Sánchez-Argüelles, David AU - Sánchez-Portal, Miguel AU - Sasada, Mahito AU - Satapathy, Kaushik AU - Savolainen, T. AU - Schloerb, F. Peter AU - Schonfeld, Jonathan AU - Schuster, Karl-Friedrich AU - Shao, Lijing AU - Shen, Zhiqiang Q. AU - Small, Des AU - Sohn, Bong Won AU - Whittier, J. SooHoo AU - Souccar, Kamal AU - Sun, He AU - Tazaki, Fumie AU - Tetarenko, Alexandra J. AU - Tiede, Paul AU - Tilanus, Remo P. J. AU - Titus, Michael AU - Torné, Pablo AU - Traianou, Efthalia AU - Trent, Tyler AU - Trippe, Sascha AU - Turk, Matthew AU - Bemmel, Ilse M. van AU - Langevelde, Huib Jan van AU - Rossum, Daniel R. van AU - Vos, Jesse AU - Wagner, Jan AU - Ward-Thompson, Derek AU - Wardle, John F. C. AU - Weintroub, Jonathan AU - Wex, Norbert AU - Wharton, Robert AU - Wielgus, Maciek AU - Wiik, K. AU - Witzel, Gunther AU - Wondrak, Michael F. AU - Wong, George N. AU - 吴, Qingwen 庆文 Wu AU - Yamaguchi, Paul AU - Yoon, Doosoo AU - Young, André AU - Young, Ken AU - Younsi, Ziri AU - 袁, Feng 峰 Yuan AU - 袁, Ye-Fei 业飞 Yuan AU - Zensus, J. A. AU - Zhang, Shuo AU - Zhao, Guang-Yao AU - Zhao, Shan-Shan AU - Agurto, C. AU - Allardi, Alexander AU - Amestica, Rodrigo AU - Araneda, Juan Pablo AU - Arriagada, Oriel AU - Berghuis, Jennie L. AU - Bertarini, Alessandra AU - Berthold, Ryan M. AU - Blanchard, J. AU - Brown, Ken AU - Cárdenas, Mauricio AU - Cantzler, Michael AU - Caro, Patricio AU - Castillo-Domínguez, Edgar AU - Chan, Tin Lok AU - Chang, Chih-Cheng AU - Chang, Dominic O. AU - Chang, Shu-Hao AU - Chang, Song-Chu AU - Chen, Chung-Chen AU - Chilson, Ryan AU - Chuter, Tim C. AU - Ciechanowicz, Mirosław AU - Colín-Beltrán, Edgar AU - Coulson, Iain M. AU - Crowley, Joseph AU - Degenaar, Nathalie AU - Dornbusch, Sven AU - Durán, Carlos A. AU - Everett, Wendeline B. AU - Faber, Aaron AU - Förster, Karl AU - Fuchs, Miriam AU - Gale, David Michel AU - Geertsema, Gertie AU - González, E. Gómez AU - Graham, Dave A. AU - Gueth, Frédéric AU - Halverson, N. W. AU - Han, Chih-Chiang AU - Han, Kuo-Chang AU - Hasegawa, Yutaka AU - Hernández-Rebollar, José Luis AU - Herrera, Cristian AU - Herrero-Illana, Rubén AU - Heyminck, S. AU - Hirota, Akihiko AU - Hoge, James AU - Schimpf, Shelbi Hostler AU - Howie, Ryan AU - Huang, Yau-De AU - Jiang, Homin AU - Jinchi, H. AU - David, John AU - Kimura, Kimihiro AU - Klein, Thomas AU - Kubo, Derek Y. AU - Kuroda, John T. AU - Kwon, Caleb AU - Lacasse, Richard AU - Laing, Robert A. AU - Leitch, Erik M. AU - Li, Chao-Te AU - Liu, Ching-Tang AU - Liu, Kuan-Yu AU - Lin, L. C.-C. AU - Lu, Li-Ming AU - Mac-Auliffe, F. AU - Martin-Cocher, Pierre L. AU - Matulonis, Callie AU - Maute, John K. AU - Messias, Hugo AU - Meyer-Zhao, Zheng AU - Montaña, Alfredo AU - Montenegro-Montes, Francisco Miguel AU - Montgomerie, William AU - Nolasco, Marcos Emir Moreno AU - Muders, D. AU - Nishioka, Hiroaki AU - Norton, Timothy AU - Nystrom, George U. AU - Ogawa, Hideo AU - Olivares, Rodrigo AU - Oshiro, Peter AU - Pérez-Beaupuits, Juan Pablo AU - Parra, Rodrigo AU - Phillips, Neil M. AU - Poirier, Michael AU - Pradel, Nicolas AU - Qiu, Richard AU - Raffin, Philippe A. AU - Rahlin, Alexandra S. AU - Ramírez, Jorge AU - Ressler, Sean M. AU - Reynolds, Mark T. AU - Rodríguez-Montoya, Iván AU - Sáez-Madaín, Alejandro F. AU - Santana, Jorge AU - Shaw, Paul AU - Shirkey, Leslie E. AU - Silva, Kevin M. AU - Snow, William AU - Sousa, Don AU - Sridharan, T. K. AU - Stahm, William G. AU - Stark, Antony A. AU - Test, John AU - Torstensson, Karl J. E. AU - Venegas, Paulina AU - Walther, Craig A. AU - Wei, Ta-Shun S. AU - White, Christopher J. AU - Wieching, G. AU - Wijnands, Rudy A. D. AU - Wouterloot, Jan G. A. AU - Yu, Chen-Yu AU - (于威), Wei Yu AU - Zeballos, Milagros TI - First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope Results. I. The Shadow of the Supermassive Black Hole in the Center of the Milky Way JO - The Astrophysical Journal Letters VL - 930 IS - 2 SP - L12 PY - 2022 DA - 2022/05/01 DO - 10.3847/2041-8213/ac6674 UR - https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ac6674 ER -

First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope Results. I. The Shadow of the Supermassive Black Hole in the Center of the Milky Way

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First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope Results. I. The Shadow of the Supermassive Black Hole in the Center of the Milky Way

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