Browsing by Author "Ceccobello, Chiara"

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  • Characterizing and Mitigating Intraday Variability: Reconstructing Source Structure in Accreting Black Holes with mm-VLBI
    (2022-05-01) Broderick, Avery E.; Gold, Roman; Georgiev, Boris; Pesce, Dominic W.; Tiede, Paul; Ni, Chunchong; Moriyama, Kotaro; Akiyama, Kazunori; Alberdi, Antxon; Alef, Walter; Algaba, Juan Carlos; Anantua, Richard; Asada, Keiichi; Azulay, Rebecca; Bach, Uwe; Baczko, Anne Kathrin; Ball, David; Baloković, Mislav; Barrett, John; Bauböck, Michi; Benson, Bradford A.; Bintley, Dan; Blackburn, Lindy; Blundell, Raymond; Bouman, Katherine L.; Bower, Geoffrey C.; Boyce, Hope; Bremer, Michael; Brinkerink, Christiaan D.; Brissenden, Roger; Britzen, Silke; Broguiere, Dominique; Bronzwaer, Thomas; Bustamante, Sandra; Byun, Do Young; Carlstrom, John E.; Ceccobello, Chiara; Chael, Andrew; Chan, Chi Kwan; Chatterjee, Koushik; Chatterjee, Shami; Chen, Ming Tang; Chen, Yongjun; Cheng, Xiaopeng; Cho, Ilje; Christian, Pierre; Kim, Dong Jin; Ramakrishnan, Venkatessh; Savolainen, Tuomas; Wagner, Jan; , Event Horizon Telescope Collaborat
     A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
    The extraordinary physical resolution afforded by the Event Horizon Telescope has opened a window onto the astrophysical phenomena unfolding on horizon scales in two known black holes, M87* and Sgr A*. However, with this leap in resolution has come a new set of practical complications. Sgr A* exhibits intraday variability that violates the assumptions underlying Earth aperture synthesis, limiting traditional image reconstruction methods to short timescales and data sets with very sparse (u, v) coverage. We present a new set of tools to detect and mitigate this variability. We develop a data-driven, model-agnostic procedure to detect and characterize the spatial structure of intraday variability. This method is calibrated against a large set of mock data sets, producing an empirical estimator of the spatial power spectrum of the brightness fluctuations. We present a novel Bayesian noise modeling algorithm that simultaneously reconstructs an average image and statistical measure of the fluctuations about it using a parameterized form for the excess variance in the complex visibilities not otherwise explained by the statistical errors. These methods are validated using a variety of simulated data, including general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations appropriate for Sgr A* and M87*. We find that the reconstructed source structure and variability are robust to changes in the underlying image model. We apply these methods to the 2017 EHT observations of M87*, finding evidence for variability across the EHT observing campaign. The variability mitigation strategies presented are widely applicable to very long baseline interferometry observations of variable sources generally, for which they provide a data-informed averaging procedure and natural characterization of inter-epoch image consistency.
  • First Sagittarius A∗ Event Horizon Telescope Results. VII. Polarization of the Ring
    (2024-04-01) Akiyama, Kazunori; 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.; Boyce, Hope; Bremer, Michael; Brinkerink, Christiaan D.; Brissenden, Roger; Britzen, Silke; Broderick, Avery E.; Broguiere, Dominique; Bronzwaer, Thomas; Bustamante, Sandra; Byun, Do Young; Carlstrom, John E.; Ceccobello, Chiara; Chael, Andrew; Chan, Chi Kwan; Chang, Dominic O.; Chatterjee, Koushik; Chatterjee, Shami; Chen, Ming Tang; Chen, Yongjun; Cheng, Xiaopeng; Cho, Ilje; Christian, Pierre; Conroy, Nicholas S.; Kim, Dong Jin; Li, Zhiyuan; Ramakrishnan, Venkatessh; Savolainen, Tuomas; Wagner, Jan; Washington, Jasmin E.; Wiik, Kaj; , Event Horizon Telescope Collaborat
     A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
    The Event Horizon Telescope observed the horizon-scale synchrotron emission region around the Galactic center supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A∗ (Sgr A∗), in 2017. These observations revealed a bright, thick ring morphology with a diameter of 51.8 ± 2.3 μas and modest azimuthal brightness asymmetry, consistent with the expected appearance of a black hole with mass M≈ 4 × 106 M⊙. From these observations, we present the first resolved linear and circular polarimetric images of Sgr A∗. The linear polarization images demonstrate that the emission ring is highly polarized, exhibiting a prominent spiral electric vector polarization angle pattern with a peak fractional polarization of ∼40% in the western portion of the ring. The circular polarization images feature a modestly (∼5%°-10%) polarized dipole structure along the emission ring, with negative circular polarization in the western region and positive circular polarization in the eastern region, although our methods exhibit stronger disagreement than for linear polarization. We analyze the data using multiple independent imaging and modeling methods, each of which is validated using a standardized suite of synthetic data sets. While the detailed spatial distribution of the linear polarization along the ring remains uncertain owing to the intrinsic variability of the source, the spiraling polarization structure is robust to methodological choices. The degree and orientation of the linear polarization provide stringent constraints for the black hole and its surrounding magnetic fields, which we discuss in an accompanying publication.
  • A Multiwavelength Study of GRS 1716-249 in Outburst: Constraints on Its System Parameters
    (2022-06-01) Saikia, Payaswini; Russell, David M.; Baglio, M. C.; Bramich, D. M.; Casella, Piergiorgio; Trigo, Maria Diaz; Gandhi, Poshak; Jiang, Jiachen; Maccarone, Thomas; Soria, Roberto; Al Noori, Hind; Al Yazeedi, Aisha; Alabarta, Kevin; Belloni, Tomaso; Bel, Marion Cadolle; Ceccobello, Chiara; Corbel, Stéphane; Fender, Rob; Gallo, Elena; Homan, Jeroen; Koljonen, Karri; Lewis, Fraser; Markoff, Sera B.; Miller-Jones, James C.A.; Rodriguez, Jerome; Russell, Thomas D.; Shahbaz, Tariq; Sivakoff, Gregory R.; Testa, Vincenzo; Tetarenko, Alexandra J.
     A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
    We present a detailed study of the evolution of the Galactic black hole transient GRS 1716-249 during its 2016-2017 outburst at optical (Las Cumbres Observatory), mid-infrared (Very Large Telescope), near-infrared (Rapid Eye Mount telescope), and ultraviolet (the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope) wavelengths, along with archival radio and X-ray data. We show that the optical/near-infrared and UV emission of the source mainly originates from a multi-temperature accretion disk, while the mid-infrared and radio emission are dominated by synchrotron emission from a compact jet. The optical/UV flux density is correlated with the X-ray emission when the source is in the hard state, consistent with an X-ray irradiated accretion disk with an additional contribution from the viscous disk during the outburst fade. We find evidence for a weak, but highly variable jet component at mid-infrared wavelengths. We also report the long-term optical light curve of the source and find that the quiescent i′ -band magnitude is 21.39 ± 0.15 mag. Furthermore, we discuss how previous estimates of the system parameters of the source are based on various incorrect assumptions, and so are likely to be inaccurate. By comparing our GRS 1716-249 data set to those of other outbursting black hole X-ray binaries, we find that while GRS 1716-249 shows similar X-ray behavior, it is noticeably optically fainter, if the literature distance of 2.4 kpc is adopted. Using several lines of reasoning, we argue that the source distance is further than previously assumed in the literature, likely within 4-17 kpc, with a most likely range of ∼4-8 kpc.
  • Polarimetric Geometric Modeling for mm-VLBI Observations of Black Holes
    (2023-11-01) Roelofs, Freek; Johnson, Michael D.; Chael, Andrew; Janssen, Michael; Wielgus, Maciek; Broderick, Avery E.; Akiyama, Kazunori; Alberdi, Antxon; Alef, Walter; Algaba, Juan Carlos; Anantua, Richard; Asada, Keiichi; Azulay, Rebecca; Bach, Uwe; Baczko, Anne Kathrin; Ball, David; Baloković, Mislav; Barrett, John; Bauböck, Michi; Benson, Bradford A.; Bintley, Dan; Blackburn, Lindy; Blundell, Raymond; Bouman, Katherine L.; Bower, Geoffrey C.; Boyce, Hope; Bremer, Michael; Brinkerink, Christiaan D.; Brissenden, Roger; Britzen, Silke; Broguiere, Dominique; Bronzwaer, Thomas; Bustamante, Sandra; Byun, Do Young; Carlstrom, John E.; Ceccobello, Chiara; Chan, Chi Kwan; Chang, Dominic O.; Chatterjee, Koushik; Chatterjee, Shami; Chen, Ming Tang; Chen, Yongjun; Cheng, Xiaopeng; Cho, Ilje; Christian, Pierre; Conroy, Nicholas S.; Conway, John E.; Cordes, James M.; Crawford, Thomas M.; Crew, Geoffrey B.; Cruz-Osorio, Alejandro; Cui, Yuzhu; Dahale, Rohan; Davelaar, Jordy; De Laurentis, Mariafelicia; Deane, Roger; Dempsey, Jessica; Desvignes, Gregory; Dexter, Jason; Dhruv, Vedant; Doeleman, Sheperd S.; Dougal, Sean; Dzib, Sergio A.; Eatough, Ralph P.; Emami, Razieh; Falcke, Heino; Farah, Joseph; Fish, Vincent L.; Fomalont, Ed; Ford, H. Alyson; 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; Haworth, Kari; Hecht, Michael H.; Hesper, Ronald; Heumann, Dirk; Ho, Luis C.; Ho, Paul; Honma, Mareki; Huang, Chih Wei L.; Huang, Lei; Hughes, David H.; Ikeda, Shiro; Impellizzeri, C. M.Violette; Inoue, Makoto; Issaoun, Sara; James, David J.; Jannuzi, Buell T.; Jeter, Britton; Jiang, Wu; Jiménez-Rosales, Alejandra; Jorstad, Svetlana; Joshi, Abhishek V.; Jung, Taehyun; Karami, Mansour; 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; Lauer, Tod R.; Lee, Daeyoung; Lee, Sang Sung; Leung, Po Kin; 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.; Michalik, Daniel; Mizuno, Izumi; Mizuno, Yosuke; Moran, James M.; Moriyama, Kotaro; Moscibrodzka, Monika; Mulaudzi, Wanga; Müller, Cornelia; Müller, Hendrik; Mus, Alejandro; Musoke, Gibwa; Myserlis, Ioannis; Nadolski, Andrew; Nagai, Hiroshi; Nagar, Neil M.; Nakamura, Masanori; Narayan, Ramesh; Narayanan, Gopal; Natarajan, Iniyan; Nathanail, Antonios; Fuentes, Santiago Navarro; Neilsen, Joey; Neri, Roberto; Ni, Chunchong; Noutsos, Aristeidis; Nowak, Michael A.; Oh, Junghwan; Okino, Hiroki; Olivares, Héctor; Ortiz-León, Gisela N.; 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; Plambeck, Richard; PopStefanija, Aleksandar; Porth, Oliver; Pötzl, Felix M.; Prather, Ben; Preciado-López, Jorge A.; Psaltis, Dimitrios; Pu, Hung Yi; Ramakrishnan, Venkatessh; Rao, Ramprasad; Rawlings, Mark G.; Raymond, Alexander W.; Rezzolla, Luciano; Ricarte, Angelo; Ripperda, Bart; Rogers, Alan; Romero-Cañizales, Cristina; Ros, Eduardo; Roshanineshat, Arash; Rottmann, Helge; Roy, Alan L.; Ruiz, Ignacio; Ruszczyk, Chet; Rygl, Kazi L.J.; Sánchez, Salvador; Sánchez-Argüelles, David; Sánchez-Portal, Miguel; Sasada, Mahito; Satapathy, Kaushik; Savolainen, Tuomas; Schloerb, F. Peter; Schonfeld, Jonathan; Schuster, Karl Friedrich; Shao, Lijing; Shen, Zhiqiang; Small, Des; Sohn, Bong Won; SooHoo, Jason; Sosapanta Salas, León David; Souccar, Kamal; Sun, He; Tazaki, Fumie; Tetarenko, Alexandra J.; Tiede, Paul; Tilanus, Remo P.J.; Titus, Michael; Torne, Pablo; Toscano, Teresa; Traianou, Efthalia; Trent, Tyler; Trippe, Sascha; Turk, Matthew; van Bemmel, Ilse; van Langevelde, Huib Jan; van Rossum, Daniel R.; Vos, Jesse; Wagner, Jan; Ward-Thompson, Derek; Wardle, John; Washington, Jasmin E.; Weintroub, Jonathan; Wharton, Robert; Wiik, Kaj; Witzel, Gunther; Wondrak, Michael F.; Wong, George N.; Wu, Qingwen; Yadlapalli, Nitika; Yamaguchi, Paul; Yfantis, Aristomenis; Yoon, Doosoo; Young, André; Young, Ken; Younsi, Ziri; Yu, Wei; Yuan, Feng; Yuan, Ye Fei; Zensus, J. Anton; Zhang, Shuo; Zhao, Guang Yao; Zhao, Shan Shan
     A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
    The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is a millimeter very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) array that has imaged the apparent shadows of the supermassive black holes M87* and Sagittarius A*. Polarimetric data from these observations contain a wealth of information on the black hole and accretion flow properties. In this work, we develop polarimetric geometric modeling methods for mm-VLBI data, focusing on approaches that fit data products with differing degrees of invariance to broad classes of calibration errors. We establish a fitting procedure using a polarimetric “m-ring” model to approximate the image structure near a black hole. By fitting this model to synthetic EHT data from general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic models, we show that the linear and circular polarization structure can be successfully approximated with relatively few model parameters. We then fit this model to EHT observations of M87* taken in 2017. In total intensity and linear polarization, the m-ring fits are consistent with previous results from imaging methods. In circular polarization, the m-ring fits indicate the presence of event-horizon-scale circular polarization structure, with a persistent dipolar asymmetry and orientation across several days. The same structure was recovered independently of observing band, used data products, and model assumptions. Despite this broad agreement, imaging methods do not produce similarly consistent results. Our circular polarization results, which imposed additional assumptions on the source structure, should thus be interpreted with some caution. Polarimetric geometric modeling provides a useful and powerful method to constrain the properties of horizon-scale polarized emission, particularly for sparse arrays like the EHT.
  • A Search for Pulsars around Sgr A* in the First Event Horizon Telescope Data Set
    (2023-12-01) Torne, Pablo; Liu, Kuo; Eatough, Ralph P.; Wongphechauxsorn, Jompoj; Cordes, James M.; Desvignes, Gregory; De Laurentis, Mariafelicia; Kramer, Michael; Ransom, Scott M.; Chatterjee, Shami; Wharton, Robert; Karuppusamy, Ramesh; Blackburn, Lindy; Janssen, Michael; Chan, Chi Kwan; Crew, Geoffrey, B.; Matthews, Lynn D.; Goddi, Ciriaco; Rottmann, Helge; Wagner, Jan; Sánchez, Salvador; Ruiz, Ignacio; Abbate, Federico; Bower, Geoffrey C.; Salamanca, Juan J.; Gómez-Ruiz, Arturo I.; Herrera-Aguilar, Alfredo; Jiang, Wu; Lu, Ru Sen; Pen, Ue Li; Raymond, Alexander W.; Shao, Lijing; Shen, Zhiqiang; Paubert, Gabriel; Sanchez-Portal, Miguel; Kramer, Carsten; Castillo, Manuel; Navarro, Santiago; John, David; Schuster, Karl Friedrich; Johnson, Michael D.; Rygl, Kazi L.J.; Akiyama, Kazunori; Alberdi, Antxon; Alef, Walter; Algaba, Juan Carlos; Anantua, Richard; Asada, Keiichi; Azulay, Rebecca; Bach, Uwe; Baczko, Anne Kathrin; Ball, David; Baloković, Mislav; Barrett, John; Bauböck, Michi; Benson, Bradford A.; Bintley, Dan; Blundell, Raymond; Bouman, Katherine L.; Boyce, Hope; Bremer, Michael; Brinkerink, Christiaan D.; Brissenden, Roger; Britzen, Silke; Broderick, Avery E.; Broguiere, Dominique; Bronzwaer, Thomas; Bustamante, Sandra; Byun, Do Young; Carlstrom, John E.; Ceccobello, Chiara; Chael, Andrew; Chang, Dominic O.; Chatterjee, Koushik; Chen, Ming Tang; Chen, Yongjun; Cheng, Xiaopeng; Cho, Ilje; Christian, Pierre; Conroy, Nicholas S.; Conway, John E.; Crawford, Thomas M.; Cruz-Osorio, Alejandro; Cui, Yuzhu; Dahale, Rohan; Davelaar, Jordy; Deane, Roger; Dempsey, Jessica; Dexter, Jason; Dhruv, Vedant; Doeleman, Sheperd S.; Dougal, Sean; Dzib, Sergio A.; Emami, Razieh; Falcke, Heino; Farah, Joseph; Fish, Vincent L.; Fomalont, Ed; Ford, H. Alyson; 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; Gold, Roman; Gómez, José L.; Gu, Minfeng; Gurwell, Mark; Hada, Kazuhiro; Haggard, Daryl; Haworth, Kari; Hecht, Michael H.; Hesper, Ronald; Heumann, Dirk; Ho, Luis C.; Ho, Paul; Honma, Mareki; Huang, Chih Wei L.; Huang, Lei; Hughes, David H.; Ikeda, Shiro; Impellizzeri, C. M.Violette; Inoue, Makoto; Issaoun, Sara; James, David J.; Jannuzi, Buell T.; Jeter, Britton; Jiménez-Rosales, Alejandra; Jorstad, Svetlana; Joshi, Abhishek V.; Jung, Taehyun; Karami, Mansour; 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; Koyama, Shoko; Krichbaum, Thomas P.; Kuo, Cheng Yu; La Bella, Noemi; Lauer, Tod R.; Lee, Daeyoung; Lee, Sang Sung; Leung, Po Kin; Levis, Aviad; Li, Zhiyuan; Lico, Rocco; Lindahl, Greg; Lindqvist, Michael; Lisakov, Mikhail; Liu, Jun; Liuzzo, Elisabetta; Lo, Wen Ping; Lobanov, Andrei P.; Loinard, Laurent; Lonsdale, Colin J.; MacDonald, Nicholas R.; Mao, Jirong; Marchili, Nicola; Markoff, Sera; Marrone, Daniel P.; Marscher, Alan P.; Martí-Vidal, Iván; Matsushita, Satoki; Medeiros, Lia; Menten, Karl M.; Michalik, Daniel; Mizuno, Izumi; Mizuno, Yosuke; Moran, James M.; Moriyama, Kotaro; Moscibrodzka, Monika; Müller, Cornelia; Müller, Hendrik; Mus, Alejandro; Musoke, Gibwa; Myserlis, Ioannis; Nadolski, Andrew; Nagai, Hiroshi; Nagar, Neil M.; Nakamura, Masanori; Narayan, Ramesh; Narayanan, Gopal; Natarajan, Iniyan; Nathanail, Antonios; Neilsen, Joey; Neri, Roberto; Ni, Chunchong; Noutsos, Aristeidis; Nowak, Michael A.; Oh, Junghwan; Okino, Hiroki; Olivares, Héctor; Ortiz-León, Gisela N.; Oyama, Tomoaki; Özel, Feryal; Palumbo, Daniel C.M.; Paraschos, Georgios Filippos; Park, Jongho; Parsons, Harriet; Patel, Nimesh; Pesce, Dominic W.; Piétu, Vincent; Plambeck, Richard; PopStefanija, Aleksandar; Porth, Oliver; Pötzl, Felix M.; Prather, Ben; Preciado-López, Jorge A.; Psaltis, Dimitrios; Pu, Hung Yi; Ramakrishnan, Venkatessh; Rao, Ramprasad; Rawlings, Mark G.; Rezzolla, Luciano; Ricarte, Angelo; Ripperda, Bart; Roelofs, Freek; Rogers, Alan; Ros, Eduardo; Romero-Cañizales, Cristina; Roshanineshat, Arash; Roy, Alan L.; Ruszczyk, Chet; Sánchez-Argüelles, David; Sasada, Mahito; Satapathy, Kaushik; Savolainen, Tuomas; Schloerb, F. Peter; Schonfeld, Jonathan; Small, Des; Sohn, Bong Won; SooHoo, Jason; Souccar, Kamal; Sun, He; Tetarenko, Alexandra J.; Tiede, Paul; Tilanus, Remo P.J.; Titus, Michael; Toscano, Teresa; Traianou, Efthalia; Trent, Tyler; Trippe, Sascha; Turk, Matthew; van Bemmel, Ilse; van Langevelde, Huib Jan; van Rossum, Daniel R.; Vos, Jesse; Ward-Thompson, Derek; Wardle, John; Weintroub, Jonathan; Wex, Norbert; Wielgus, Maciek; Wiik, Kaj; Witzel, Gunther; Wondrak, Michael F.; Wong, George N.; Wu, Qingwen; Yadlapalli, Nitika; Yamaguchi, Paul; Yfantis, Aristomenis; Yoon, Doosoo; Young, André; Young, Ken; Younsi, Ziri; Yu, Wei; Yuan, Feng; Yuan, Ye Fei; Zensus, J. Anton; Zhang, Shuo; Zhao, Guang Yao; Zhao, Shan Shan
     A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
    In 2017 the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) observed the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), at a frequency of 228.1 GHz (λ = 1.3 mm). The fundamental physics tests that even a single pulsar orbiting Sgr A* would enable motivate searching for pulsars in EHT data sets. The high observing frequency means that pulsars—which typically exhibit steep emission spectra—are expected to be very faint. However, it also negates pulse scattering, an effect that could hinder pulsar detections in the Galactic center. Additionally, magnetars or a secondary inverse Compton emission could be stronger at millimeter wavelengths than at lower frequencies. We present a search for pulsars close to Sgr A* using the data from the three most sensitive stations in the EHT 2017 campaign: the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, the Large Millimeter Telescope, and the IRAM 30 m Telescope. We apply three detection methods based on Fourier-domain analysis, the fast folding algorithm, and single-pulse searches targeting both pulsars and burst-like transient emission. We use the simultaneity of the observations to confirm potential candidates. No new pulsars or significant bursts were found. Being the first pulsar search ever carried out at such high radio frequencies, we detail our analysis methods and give a detailed estimation of the sensitivity of the search. We conclude that the EHT 2017 observations are only sensitive to a small fraction (≲2.2%) of the pulsars that may exist close to Sgr A*, motivating further searches for fainter pulsars in the region.
  • A Wildly Flickering Jet in the Black Hole X-Ray Binary MAXI J1535-571
    (2018-11-10) Cristina Baglio, Maria; Russell, David M.; Casella, Piergiorgio; Al Noori, Hind; Al Yazeedi, Aisha; Belloni, Tomaso; Buckley, David A.H.; Cadolle Bel, Marion; Ceccobello, Chiara; Corbel, Stephane; Coti Zelati, Francesco; Díaz Trigo, Maria; Fender, Rob P.; Gallo, Elena; Gandhi, Poshak; Homan, Jeroen; Koljonen, Karri I.I.; Lewis, Fraser; Maccarone, Thomas J.; Malzac, Julien; Markoff, Sera; Miller-Jones, James C.A.; O'Brien, Kieran; Russell, Thomas D.; Saikia, Payaswini; Shahbaz, Tariq; Sivakoff, Greg R.; Soria, Roberto; Testa, Vincenzo; Tetarenko, Alexandra J.; Van Den Ancker, Mario E.; Vincentelli, Federico M.
     A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
    We report on the results of optical, near-infrared (NIR), and mid-infrared observations of the black hole X-ray binary candidate (BHB) MAXI J1535-571 during its 2017/2018 outburst. During the first part of the outburst (MJD 58004-58012), the source shows an optical-NIR spectrum that is consistent with an optically thin synchrotron power law from a jet. After MJD 58015, however, the source faded considerably, the drop in flux being much more evident at lower frequencies. Before the fading, we measure a dereddened flux density of 100 mJy in the mid-infrared, making MAXI J1535-571 one of the brightest mid-infrared BHBs known so far. A significant softening of the X-ray spectrum is evident contemporaneous with the infrared fade. We interpret it as being due to the suppression of the jet emission, similar to the accretion-ejection coupling seen in other BHBs. However, MAXI J1535-571 did not transition smoothly to the soft state, instead showing X-ray hardness deviations associated with infrared flaring. We also present the first mid-IR variability study of a BHB on minute timescales, with a fractional rms variability of the light curves of ∼15%-22%, which is similar to that expected from the internal shock jet model, and much higher than the optical fractional rms (≲7%). These results represent an excellent case of multiwavelength jet spectral timing and demonstrate how rich, multiwavelength time-resolved data of X-ray binaries over accretion state transitions can help in refining models of the disk-jet connection and jet launching in these systems.