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2021ApJ...922L..28J - Astrophys. J., 922, L28-L28 (2021/December-1)

First Space-VLBI observations of Sagittarius A*.

JOHNSON M.D., KOVALEV Y.Y., LISAKOV M.M., VOITSIK P.A., GWINN C.R. and BRUNI G.

Abstract (from CDS):

We report results from the first Earth-space VLBI observations of the Galactic Center supermassive black hole, Sgr A*. These observations used the space telescope Spektr-R of the RadioAstron project together with a global network of 20 ground telescopes, observing at a wavelength of 1.35 cm. Spektr-R provided baselines up to 3.9 times the diameter of the Earth, corresponding to an angular resolution of approximately 55 µas and a spatial resolution of 5.5RSch at the source, where RSch ≡ 2GM/c2 is the Schwarzschild radius of Sgr A*. Our short ground baseline measurements ( <= 80 Mλ) are consistent with an anisotropic Gaussian image, while our intermediate ground baseline measurements (100-250 Mλ) confirm the presence of persistent image substructure in Sgr A*. Both features are consistent with theoretical expectations for strong scattering in the ionized interstellar medium, which produces Gaussian scatter-broadening on short baselines and refractive substructure on long baselines. We do not detect interferometric fringes on any of the longer ground baselines or on any ground-space baselines. While space-VLBI offers a promising pathway to sharper angular resolution and the measurement of key gravitational signatures in black holes, such as their photon rings, our results demonstrate that space-VLBI studies of Sgr A* will require sensitive observations at submillimeter wavelengths.

Abstract Copyright: © 2021. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.

Journal keyword(s): Interstellar scattering - Supermassive black holes - Very long baseline interferometry

Simbad objects: 3

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