Colloquium on Sep. 30, 2021

Photographing Black Holes with the Event Horizon Telescope

Speaker: Kazu Akiyama (MIT)

Venue: Video Conference

Time: 09:00 AM, Thursday, Sep. 30, 2021

Abstract:

Two years ago, in April 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) released the first images of a black hole, resolving the shadow of the supermassive black hole Messier 87* (M87*) lurking at the center of the nearby active galaxy M87. Furthermore, the EHT recently captured the polarization of the photon ring enclosing the shadow, revealing the structure of the magnetic fields near the event horizon. The EHT uses very long baseline interferometry at 1.3 mm wavelength with a global network of radio telescopes, providing the sharpest view of the universe that resolves black hole accretion and jet base at the edge of the event horizon. In this talk, I will present an overview of the past, present, and future of black hole imaging with the EHT. I will first discuss the major breakthroughs enabling to provide these results and also the major outcomes from these horizon-scale images. Then, I will give our next decadal forecast of the forthcoming exciting era to study black holes through direct imaging.

Report PPT:  SWIFAR_Kazu Akiyama.pdf