Person:

Moran, James

Sagittarius A*, the ~4 × 106 M ☉ black hole candidate at the Galactic center, can be studied on Schwarzschild radius scales with (sub)millimeter wavelength very long baseline interferometry (VLBI). We report on 1.3 mm wavelength observations of Sgr A* using a VLBI array consisting of the JCMT on Mauna Kea, the Arizona Radio Observatory's Submillimeter Telescope on Mt. Graham in Arizona, and two telescopes of the CARMA array at Cedar Flat in California. Both Sgr A* and the quasar calibrator 1924–292 were observed over three consecutive nights, and both sources were clearly detected on all baselines. For the first time, we are able to extract 1.3 mm VLBI interferometer phase information on Sgr A* through measurement of closure phase on the triangle of baselines. On the third night of observing, the correlated flux density of Sgr A* on all VLBI baselines increased relative to the first two nights, providing strong evidence for time-variable change on scales of a few Schwarzschild radii. These results suggest that future VLBI observations with greater sensitivity and additional baselines will play a valuable role in determining the structure of emission near the event horizon of Sgr A*.

We report the first detection of an extragalactic millimeter wavelength H2O maser at 183 GHz towards NGC 3079 using the Submillimeter Array (SMA), and a tentative submillimeter wave detection of the 439 GHz maser towards the same source using the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT). These H2O transitions are known to exhibit maser emission in star-forming regions and evolved stars. NGC 3079 is a well-studied nuclear H2O maser source at 22 GHz with a timevariable peak flux density in the range 3 – 12 Jy. The 183 GHz H2O maser emission, with peak flux density ∼0.5 Jy (7σ detection), also originates from the nuclear region of NGC 3079 and is spatially coincident with the dust continuum peak at 193 GHz (53 mJy integrated). Peak emission at both 183 and 439 GHz occurs in the same range of velocity as that covered by the 22 GHz spectrum. We estimate the gas to dust ratio of the nucleus of NGC 3079 to be ≈150, comparable to the Galactic value of 160. Discovery of maser emission in an active galactic nucleus beyond the long-known 22 GHz transition opens the possibility of future position-resolved radiative transfer modeling of accretion disks and outflows < 1 pc from massive black holes.

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.