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Doeleman, Sheperd

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Doeleman

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Sheperd

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Doeleman, Sheperd

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Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Publication
    Event-Horizon-Scale Structure in the Supermassive Black Hole Candidate at the Galactic Centre
    (Nature Publishing Group, 2008) Doeleman, Sheperd; Weintroub, Jonathan; Rogers, Alan E. E.; Plambeck, Richard; Freund, Robert; Tilanus, Remo P. J.; Friberg, Per; Ziurys, Lucy M.; Moran, James; Corey, Brian; Young, Ken; Smythe, Daniel L.; Titus, Michael; Marrone, Daniel P.; Cappallo, Roger J.; Bock, Douglas C.-J.; Bower, Geoffrey C.; Chamberlin, Richard; Davis, Gary R.; Krichbaum, Thomas P.; Lamb, James; Maness, Holly; Niell, Arthur E.; Roy, Alan; Strittmatter, Peter; Werthimer, Daniel; Whitney, Alan R.; Woody, David
    The cores of most galaxies are thought to harbour supermassive black holes, which power galactic nuclei by converting the gravitational energy of accreting matter into radiation. Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the compact source of radio, infrared and X-ray emission at the centre of the Milky Way, is the closest example of this phenomenon, with an estimated black hole mass that is 4,000,000 times that of the Sun. A long-standing astronomical goal is to resolve structures in the innermost accretion flow surrounding Sgr A*, where strong gravitational fields will distort the appearance of radiation emitted near the black hole. Radio observations at wavelengths of 3.5 mm and 7 mm have detected intrinsic structure in Sgr A*, but the spatial resolution of observations at these wavelengths is limited by interstellar scattering. Here we report observations at a wavelength of 1.3 mm that set a size of \(37^{+16}_{-10}\) microarcseconds on the intrinsic diameter of Sgr A*. This is less than the expected apparent size of the event horizon of the presumed black hole, suggesting that the bulk of Sgr A* emission may not be centred on the black hole, but arises in the surrounding accretion flow.
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    Fine-Scale Structure of the Quasar 3C 279 Measured with 1.3 mm Very Long Baseline Interferometry
    (American Astronomical Society, 2013) Lu, Ru-Sen; Fish, Vincent L.; Akiyama, Kazunori; Doeleman, Sheperd; Algaba, Juan C.; Bower, Geoffrey C.; Brinkerink, Christiaan; Chamberlin, Richard; Crew, Geoffrey; Cappallo, Roger J.; Dexter, Matt; Freund, Robert; Friberg, Per; Gurwell, Mark; Ho, Paul T. P.; Honma, Mareki; Inoue, Makoto; Jorstad, Svetlana G.; Krichbaum, Thomas P.; Loinard, Laurent; MacMahon, David; Marrone, Daniel P.; Marscher, Alan P.; Moran, James; Plambeck, Richard; Pradel, Nicolas; Primiani, Rurik; Tilanus, Remo P. J.; Titus, Michael; Weintroub, Jonathan; Wright, Melvyn; Young, Ken; Ziurys, Lucy M.
    We report results from five day very long baseline interferometry observations of the well-known quasar 3C 279 at 1.3mm (230 GHz) in 2011. The measured nonzero closure phases on triangles including stations in Arizona, California, and Hawaii indicate that the source structure is spatially resolved. We find an unusual inner jet direction at scales of ~1 pc extending along the northwest-southeast direction \((P.A. = 127^{\circ} \pm 3^{\circ})\), as opposed to other (previously) reported measurements on scales of a few parsecs showing inner jet direction extending to the southwest. The 1.3mm structure corresponds closely with that observed in the central region of quasi-simultaneous super-resolution Very Long Baseline Array images at 7 mm. The closure phase changed significantly on the last day when compared with the rest of observations, indicating that the inner jet structure may be variable on daily timescales. The observed new direction of the inner jet shows inconsistency with the prediction of a class of jet precession models. Our observations indicate a brightness temperature of \(\sim 8 \times 1010 K\) in the 1.3mm core, much lower than that at centimeter wavelengths. Observations with better uv coverage and sensitivity in the coming years will allow the discrimination between different structure models and will provide direct images of the inner regions of the jet with 20-30 μas (5-7 light months) resolution.
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    Persistent Asymmetric Structure of Sagittarius A* on Event Horizon Scales
    (American Astronomical Society, 2016) Fish, Vincent; Johnson, Michael; Doeleman, Sheperd; Broderick, Avery; Psaltis, Dimitrios; Lu, Ru-Sen; Akiyama, Kazunori; Alef, Walter; Algaba, Juan; Asada, Keiichi; Beaudoin, Christopher; Bertarini, Alessandra; Blackburn, Lindy; Blundell, Raymond; Bower, Geoffrey; Brinkerink, Christiaan; Cappallo, Roger; Chael, Andrew; Chamberlin, Richard; Chan, Chi-Kwan; Crew, Geoffrey; Dexter, Jason; Dexter, Matt; Dzib, Sergio; Falcke, Heino; Freund, Robert; Friberg, Per; Greer, Christopher; Gurwell, Mark; Ho, Paul; Honma, Mareki; Inoue, Makoto; Johannsen, Tim; Kim, Junhan; Krichbaum, Thomas; Lamb, James; León-Tavares, Jonathan; Loeb, Abraham; Loinard, Laurent; MacMahon, David; Marrone, Daniel; Moran, James; Mościbrodzka, Monika; Ortiz-León, Gisela; Oyama, Tomoaki; Özel, Feryal
    The Galactic Center black hole Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) is a prime observing target for the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), which can resolve the 1.3 mm emission from this source on angular scales comparable to that of the general relativistic shadow. Previous EHT observations have used visibility amplitudes to infer the morphology of the millimeter-wavelength emission. Potentially much richer source information is contained in the phases. We report on 1.3 mm phase information on Sgr A* obtained with the EHT on a total of 13 observing nights over 4 years. Closure phases, the sum of visibility phases along a closed triangle of interferometer baselines, are used because they are robust against phase corruptions introduced by instrumentation and the rapidly variable atmosphere. The median closure phase on a triangle including telescopes in California, Hawaii, and Arizona is nonzero. This result conclusively demonstrates that the millimeter emission is asymmetric on scales of a few Schwarzschild radii and can be used to break 180-degree rotational ambiguities inherent from amplitude data alone. The stability of the sign of the closure phase over most observing nights indicates persistent asymmetry in the image of Sgr A* that is not obscured by refraction due to interstellar electrons along the line of sight.
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    230 GHz VLBI observations of M87: event-horizon-scale structure at the enhanced very-high-energy γ-ray state in 2012
    (IOP Publishing, 2015) Akiyama, Kazunori; Lu, Ru-Sen; Fish, Vincent; Doeleman, Sheperd; Broderick, Avery; Dexter, Jason; Hada, Kazuhiro; Kino, Motoki; Nagai, Hiroshi; Honma, Mareki; Johnson, Michael; Algaba, Juan; Asada, Keiichi; Brinkerink, Christiaan; Blundell, Raymond; Bower, Geoffrey; Cappallo, Roger; Crew, Geoffrey; Dexter, Matt; Dzib, Sergio; Freund, Robert; Friberg, Per; Gurwell, Mark; Ho, Paul; Inoue, Makoto; Krichbaum, Thomas; Loinard, Laurent; MacMahon, David; Marrone, Daniel; Moran, James; Nakamura, Masanori; Nagar, Neil; Ortiz-Leon, Gisela; Plambeck, Richard; Pradel, Nicolas; Primiani, Rurik; Rogers, Alan; Roy, Alan; SooHoo, Jason; Tavares, Jonathan-León; Tilanus, Remo; Titus, Michael; Wagner, Jan; Weintroub, Jonathan; Yamaguchi, Paul; Young, Ken; Zensus, Anton; Ziurys, Lucy
    We report on 230 GHz (1.3 mm) VLBI observations of M87 with the Event Horizon Telescope using antennas on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, Mt. Graham in Arizona and Cedar Flat in California. For the first time, we have acquired 230 GHz VLBI interferometric phase information on M87 through measurement of closure phase on the triangle of long baselines. Most of the measured closure phases are consistent with 0◦ as expected by physically-motivated models for 230 GHz structure such as jet models and accretion disk models. The brightness temperature of the event-horizon-scale structure is ∼ 1 × 1010 K derived from the compact flux density of ∼ 1 Jy and the angular size of ∼ 40 µas ∼ 5.5 Rs, which is broadly consistent with the peak brightness of the radio cores at 1-86 GHz located within ∼ 102 Rs. Our observations occurred in the middle of an enhancement in very-high-energy (VHE) γ-ray flux, presumably originating in the vicinity of the central black hole. Our measurements, combined with results of multi-wavelength observations, favor a scenario in which the VHE region has an extended size of ∼20-60 Rs.
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    Resolved magnetic-field structure and variability near the event horizon of Sagittarius A
    (American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 2015) Johnson, Michael; Fish, V. L.; Doeleman, Sheperd; Marrone, D. P.; Plambeck, R. L.; Wardle, J. F. C.; Akiyama, K.; Asada, K.; Beaudoin, C.; Blackburn, Lindy; Blundell, Raymond; Bower, G. C.; Brinkerink, C.; Broderick, A. E.; Cappallo, R.; Chael, Andrew; Crew, G. B.; Dexter, J.; Dexter, M.; Freund, R.; Friberg, P.; Gold, R.; Gurwell, M. A.; Ho, P. T. P.; Honma, M.; Inoue, M.; Kosowsky, Michael; Krichbaum, T. P.; Lamb, J.; Loeb, Abraham; Lu, R.-S.; MacMahon, D.; McKinney, J. C.; Moran, James; Narayan, Ramesh; Primiani, Rurik; Psaltis, D.; Rogers, A. E. E.; Rosenfeld, Katherine; SooHoo, J.; Tilanus, R. P. J.; Titus, M.; Vertatschitsch, L.; Weintroub, Jonathan; Wright, M.; Young, Ken; Zensus, J. A.; Ziurys, L. M.
    Near a black hole, differential rotation of a magnetized accretion disk is thought to produce an instability that amplifies weak magnetic fields, driving accretion and outflow. These magnetic fields would naturally give rise to the observed synchrotron emission in galaxy cores and to the formation of relativistic jets, but no observations to date have been able to resolve the expected horizonscale magnetic-field structure. We report interferometric observations at 1.3- millimeter wavelength that spatially resolve the linearly polarized emission from the Galactic Center supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*. We have found evidence for partially ordered fields near the event horizon, on scales of ∼6 Schwarzschild radii, and we have detected and localized the intra-hour variability associated with these fields.