A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal
Horizon-scale variability of M87* from 2017–2021 EHT observations
Authors: Akiyama, Kazunori; Albentosa-Ruíz, Ezequiel; Alberdi, Antxon; Alef, Walter; Algaba, Juan Carlos; Anantua, Richard; Asada, Keiichi; Azulay, Rebecca; Bach, Uwe; Baczko, Anne-Kathrin; Ball, David; Baloković, Mislav; Bandyopadhyay, Bidisha; Barrett, John; Bauböck, Michi; Benson, Bradford A.; Bintley, Dan; Blackburn, Lindy; Blundell, Raymond; Bouman, Katherine L.; Bower, Geoffrey C.; Bremer, Michael; Brissenden, Roger; Britzen, Silke; Broderick, Avery E.; Broguiere, Dominique; Bronzwaer, Thomas; Bustamante, Sandra; Carlos, Douglas F.; Carlstrom, John E.; Chael, Andrew; Chan, Chi-kwan; Chang, Dominic O.; Chavez, Erandi; Chatterjee, Koushik; Chatterjee, Shami; Chen, Ming-Tang; Chen, Yongjun; Cheng, Xiaopeng; Chichura, Paul; Cho, Ilje; Christian, Pierre; Conroy, Nicholas S.; Conway, John E.; Crawford, Thomas M.; Crew, Geoffrey B.; Cruz-Osorio, Alejandro; Cui, Yuzhu; Curd, Brandon; Dahale, Rohan; Davelaar, Jordy; De Laurentis, Mariafelicia; Deane, Roger; Desvignes, Gregory; Dexter, Jason; Dhruv, Vedant; Dihingia, Indu K.; Doeleman, Sheperd S.; Dzib, Sergio A.; Eatough, Ralph P.; Emami, Razieh; Falcke, Heino; Farah, Joseph; Fish, Vincent L.; Fomalont, Edward; Alyson, Ford H.; Foschi, Marianna; Fraga-Encinas, Raquel; Freeman, William T.; Friberg, Per; Fromm, Christian M.; Fuentes, Antonio; Galison, Peter; Gammie, Charles F.; García, Roberto; Gentaz, Olivier; Georgiev, Boris; Goddi, Ciriaco; Gold, Roman; Gómez-Ruiz, Arturo I.; Gómez, José L.; Gu, Minfeng; Gurwell, Mark; Hada, Kazuhiro; Haggard, Daryl; Hesper, Ronald; Heumann, Dirk; Ho, Luis C.; Ho, Paul; Hoak, Dan; Honma, Mareki; Huang, Chih-Wei L.; Huang, Lei; Hughes, David H.; Ikeda, Shiro; Violette, Impellizzeri C. M.; Inoue, Makoto; Issaoun, Sara; James, David J.; Jannuzi, Buell T.; Janssen, Michael; Jeter, Britton; Jiang, Wu; Jiménez-Rosales, Alejandra; Johnson, Michael D.; Jorstad, Svetlana; Jones, Adam C.; Joshi, Abhishek V.; Jung, Taehyun; Karuppusamy, Ramesh; Kawashima, Tomohisa; Keating, Garrett K.; Kettenis, Mark; Kim, Dong-Jin; Kim, Jae-Young; Kim, Jongsoo; Kim, Junhan; Kino, Motoki; Koay, Jun Yi; Kocherlakota, Prashant; Kofuji, Yutaro; Koch, Patrick M.; Koyama, Shoko; Kramer, Carsten; Kramer, Joana A.; Kramer, Michael; Krichbaum, Thomas P.; Kuo, Cheng-Yu; La Bella, Noemi; Lee, Deokhyeong; Lee, Sang-Sung; Levis, Aviad; Li, Zhiyuan; Lico, Rocco; Lindahl, Greg; Lindqvist, Michael; Lisakov, Mikhail; Liu, Jun; Liu, Kuo; Liuzzo, Elisabetta; Lo, Wen-Ping; Lobanov, Andrei P.; Loinard, Laurent; Lonsdale, Colin J.; Lowitz, Amy E.; Lu, Ru-Sen; MacDonald, Nicholas R.; Mao, Jirong; Marchili, Nicola; Markoff, Sera; Marrone, Daniel P.; Marscher, Alan P.; Martí-Vidal, Iván; Matsushita, Satoki; Matthews, Lynn D.; Medeiros, Lia; Menten, Karl M.; Mizuno, Izumi; Mizuno, Yosuke; Montgomery, Joshua; Moran, James M.; Moriyama, Kotaro; Moscibrodzka, Monika; Mulaudzi, Wanga; Müller, Cornelia; Müller, Hendrik; Mus, Alejandro; Musoke, Gibwa; Myserlis, Ioannis; Nagai, Hiroshi; Nagar, Neil M.; Nair, Dhanya G.; Nakamura, Masanori; Narayanan, Gopal; Natarajan, Iniyan; Nathanail, Antonios; Fuentes, Santiago Navarro; Neilsen, Joey; Ni, Chunchong; Nowak, Michael A.; Oh, Junghwan; Okino, Hiroki; Sánchez, Héctor Raúl Olivares; Oyama, Tomoaki; Özel, Feryal; Palumbo, Daniel C. M.; Paraschos, Georgios Filippos; Park, Jongho; Parsons, Harriet; Patel, Nimesh; Pen, Ue-Li; Pesce, Dominic W.; Piétu, Vincent; Plavin, Alexander; PopStefanija, Aleksandar; Porth, Oliver; Prather, Ben; Principe, Giacomo; Psaltis, Dimitrios; Pu, Hung-Yi; Rahlin, Alexandra; Ramakrishnan, Venkatessh; Rao, Ramprasad; Rawlings, Mark G.; Rezzolla, Luciano; Ricarte, Angelo; Ricci, Luca; Ripperda, Bart; Röder, Jan; Roelofs, Freek; Romero-Cañizales, Cristina; Ros, Eduardo; Roshanineshat, Arash; Rottmann, Helge; Roy, Alan L.; Ruiz, Ignacio; Ruszczyk, Chet; Rygl, Kazi L. J.; Salas, León D. S.; Sánchez, Salvador; Sánchez-Argüelles, David; Sánchez-Portal, Miguel; Sasada, Mahito; Satapathy, Kaushik; Saurabh; Savolainen, Tuomas; Peter, Schloerb F.; Schonfeld, Jonathan; Schuster, Karl-Friedrich; Shao, Lijing; Shen, Zhiqiang; Silpa, Sasikumar; Small, Des; Smith, Randall; Sohn, Bong Won; SooHoo, Jason; Souccar, Kamal; Stanway, Joshua S.; Sun, He; Tazaki, Fumie; Tetarenko, Alexandra J.; Tiede, Paul; Tilanus, Remo P. J.; Titus, Michael; Toma, Kenji; Torne, Pablo; Toscano, Teresa; Traianou, Efthalia; Trent, Tyler; Trippe, Sascha; Turk, Matthew; van Bemmel, Ilse; van Langevelde, Huib Jan; van Rossum, Daniel R.; von Fellenberg, Sebastiano D.; Vos, Jesse; Wagner, Jan; Ward-Thompson, Derek; Wardle, John; Washington, Jasmin E.; Weintroub, Jonathan; West, Andrew T.; Wharton, Robert; Wielgus, Maciek; Wiik, Kaj; Witzel, Gunther; Wondrak, Michael F.; Wong, George N.; Wongphexhauxsorn, Jompoj; Wu, Qingwen; Yadlapalli, Nitika; Yamaguchi, Paul; Yfantis, Aristomenis; Yoon, Doosoo; Young, André; Younsi, Ziri; Yu, Wei; Yuan, Feng; Yuan, Ye-Fei; Zeng, Ai-Ling; Anton, Zensus J.; Zhang, Shuo; Zhao, Guang-Yao; Zhao, Shan-Shan; Berthold, Ryan; Chang, Shu-Hao; Chilson, Ryan; Han, Chih-Chiang; Gale, David M.; Geertsema, Gertie; Hernández-Rebollar, José Luis; Huang, Yau-De; Keenan, Ryan P.; Kubo, Derek; Liu, Kuan-Yu; Martin-Cocher, Pierre L.; Michalik, Daniel; Montaña, Alfredo; Nadolski, Andrew; Oshiro, Peter; Raffin, Philippe A.; Rodríguez-Montoya, Iván; Wei, Ta-Shun; Young, Matthew R.
Publisher: EDP Sciences
Publication year: 2025
Journal: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Article number: A91
Volume: 704
ISSN: 0004-6361
eISSN: 1432-0746
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202555855
Publication's open availability at the time of reporting: Open Access
Publication channel's open availability : Open Access publication channel
Web address : https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202555855
Self-archived copy’s web address: https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/508407607
We report three epochs of polarized images of M87* at 230 GHz using data from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) taken in 2017, 2018, and 2021. The baseline coverage of the 2021 observations is significantly improved through the addition of two new EHT stations: the 12 m Kitt Peak Telescope and the Northern Extended Millimetre Array (NOEMA). All observations result in images dominated by a bright, asymmetric ring with a persistent diameter of 43.9 ± 0.6 μas, consistent with expectations for lensed synchrotron emission encircling the apparent shadow of a supermassive black hole. We find that the total intensity and linear polarization of M87* vary significantly across the three epochs. Specifically, the azimuthal brightness distribution of the total intensity images varies from year to year, as expected for a stochastic accretion flow. However, despite a gamma-ray flare erupting in M87 quasi-contemporaneously to the 2018 observations, the 2018 and 2021 images look remarkably similar. The resolved linear polarization fractions in 2018 and 2021 peak at ∼5%, compared to ∼15% in 2017. The spiral polarization pattern on the ring also varies from year to year, including a change in the electric vector position angle helicity in 2021 that could reflect changes in the magnetized accretion flow or an external Faraday screen. The improved 2021 coverage also provides the first EHT constraints on jet emission outside the ring, on scales of ≲1 mas. Overall, these observations provide strong proof of the reliability of the EHT images and probe the dynamic properties of the horizon-scale accretion flow surrounding M87*.
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Appendix G: Acknowledgments (https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/pdf/2025/12/aa55855-25.pdf)
