The Black Hole Explorer: Motivation and Vision
Creators: name: Johnson, Michael D.
name: Akiyama, Kazunori
name: Baturin, Rebecca
name: Bilyeu, Bryan
name: Blackburn, Lindy
name: Boroson, Don
name: Cardenas-Avendano, Alejandro
name: Chael, Andrew
name: Chan, Chi-kwan
name: Chang, Dominic
name: Cheimets, Peter
name: Chou, Cathy
name: Doeleman, Sheperd S.
name: Farah, Joseph
name: Galison, Peter
name: Gamble, Ronald
name: Gammie, Charles F.
name: Gelles, Zachary
name: Gomez, Jose L.
name: Gralla, Samuel E.
name: Grimes, Paul
name: Gurvits, Leonid I.
name: Hadar, Shahar
name: Haworth, Kari
name: Hada, Kazuhiro
name: Hecht, Michael H.
name: Honma, Mareki
name: Houston, Janice
name: Hudson, Ben
name: Issaoun, Sara
name: Jia, He
name: Jorstad, Svetlana
name: Kauffmann, Jens
name: Kovalev, Yuri Y.
name: Kurczynski, Peter
name: Lafon, Robert
name: Lupsasca, Alexandru
name: Lehmensiek, Robert
name: Ma, Chung-Pei
name: Marrone, Daniel P.
name: Marscher, Alan P.
name: Melnick, Gary J.
name: Narayan, Ramesh
name: Niinuma, Kotaro
name: Noble, Scott C.
name: Palmer, Eric J.
name: Palumbo, Daniel C. M.
name: Paritsky, Lenny
name: Peretz, Eliad
name: Pesce, Dominic
name: Plavin, Alexander
name: Quataert, Eliot
name: Rana, Hannah
name: Ricarte, Angelo
name: Roelofs, Freek
name: Shtyrkova, Katia
name: Sinclair, Laura C.
name: Small, Jeffrey
name: Kumara, Sridharan Tirupati
name: Srinivasan, Ranjani
name: Strominger, Andrew
name: Tiede, Paul
name: Tong, Edward
name: Wang, Jade
name: Weintroub, Jonathan
name: Wielgus, Maciek
name: Wong, George
name: Zhang, Xinyue Alice
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
subject: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)
subject: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)
subject: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We present the Black Hole Explorer (BHEX), a mission that will produce the sharpest images in the history of astronomy by extending submillimeter Very-Long-Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) to space. BHEX will discover and measure the bright and narrow "photon ring" that is predicted to exist in images of black holes, produced from light that has orbited the black hole before escaping. This discovery will expose universal features of a black hole's spacetime that are distinct from the complex astrophysics of the emitting plasma, allowing the first direct measurements of a supermassive black hole's spin. In addition to studying the properties of the nearby supermassive black holes M87* and Sgr A*, BHEX will measure the properties of dozens of additional supermassive black holes, providing crucial insights into the processes that drive their creation and growth. BHEX will also connect these supermassive black holes to their relativistic jets, elucidating the power source for the brightest and most efficient engines in the universe. BHEX will address fundamental open questions in the physics and astrophysics of black holes that cannot be answered without submillimeter space VLBI. The mission is enabled by recent technological breakthroughs, including the development of ultra-high-speed downlink using laser communications, and it leverages billions of dollars of existing ground infrastructure. We present the motivation for BHEX, its science goals and associated requirements, and the pathway to launch within the next decade.
description: Proceedings for SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation