Ring Asymmetry and Spin in M87*

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Authors: Vadim Bernshteyn, Nicholas S. Conroy, Michi Bauböck, Paul Tiede, Abhishek V. Joshi, Ben S. Prather, Charles F. Gammie, The Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration, :, Kazunori Akiyama, Ezequiel Albentosa-Ruíz, Antxon Alberdi
+88 more Walter Alef, Juan Carlos Algaba, Richard Anantua, Keiichi Asada, Rebecca Azulay, Anne-Kathrin Baczko, David Ball, Bidisha Bandyopadhyay, John Barrett, Bradford Benson, Dan Bintley, L. Blackburn, R. Blundell, Katherine L. Bouman, G. R. Bower, Michael Bremer, Roger Brissenden, S. Britzen, Avery E. Broderick, Dominique Broguière, Thomas Bronzwaer, Sandra Bustamante, D. G. Layos Carlos, John E. Carlstrom, Andrew Chael, Chi‐kwan Chan, Dominic O. Chang, Koushik Chatterjee, Ming‐Tang Chen, Yongjun Chen, Xiaopeng Cheng, P. M. Chichura, Ilje Cho, J. Conway, Thomas M. Crawford, G. B. Crew, Alejandro Cruz-Osorio, Yuzhu Cui, Brandon Curd, Rohan Dahale, Jordy Davelaar, Mariafelicia De Laurentis, Roger P Deane, Jason Dexter, Vedant Dhruv, Indu K. Dihingia, Sheperd S. Doeleman, Sergio A. Dzib, Razieh Emami, Heino Falcke, Joseph Farah, Vincent L. Fish, Edward B. Fomalont, H. Alyson Ford, Marianna Foschi, Raquel Fraga-Encinas, William T. Freeman, Per Friberg, Christian M. Fromm, Antonio Fuentes, Peter Louis Galison, Roberto García, Olivier Gentaz, Boris Georgiev, C. Goddi, Roman Gold, Arturo I. Gómez-Ruiz, José L. Gómez, Minfeng Gu, Mark Gurwell, Kazuhiro Hada, Daryl Haggard, Ronald Hesper, Dirk Heumann, Luis C. Ho, P. L. Ho, Mareki Honma, Chih-Wei L. Huang, Lei Huang, David H. Hughes, S. Ikeda, C. M. V. Impellizzeri, M. Inoue, Sara Issaoun, David J. James, Buell T. Jannuzi, M. A. Janssen, Britton Jeter
Cited by: 1

Abstract

Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) images of the supermassive black hole M87* depict an asymmetric ring of emission. General relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (GRMHD) models of M87* and its accretion disk predict that the amplitude and location of the ring's peak brightness asymmetry should fluctuate due to turbulence in the source plasma. We compare the observed distribution of brightness asymmetry amplitudes to the simulated distribution in GRMHD models, across varying black hole spin $a_{*}$. We show that, for strongly magnetized (MAD) models, three epochs of EHT data marginally disfavor $|a_{*}| \lesssim 0.2$. This is consistent with the Blandford-Znajek model for M87's jet, which predicts that M87* should have nonzero spin. We show quantitatively how future observations could improve spin constraints, and discuss how improved spin constraints could distinguish between differing jet-launching mechanisms and black hole growth scenarios.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae

Publication details

Journal / source
Publication Server of Goethe University Frankfurt am Main (Goethe University Frankfurt)
Publication date
1 January 2026
Language
EN
Document type
Preprint