Probing the spacetime around supermassive black holes with ejected plasma blobs

Abstract

Millimeter-wavelength very-long-baseline-interferometry observations of the supermassive black holes in Sgr A* and M87 by the Event Horizon Telescope could potentially trace the dynamics of ejected plasma blobs in real time. We demonstrate that the trajectory and tidal stretching of these blobs can be used to test general relativity and set new constraints on the mass and spin of these black holes.