A ring-like accretion structure in M87 connecting its black hole and jet
Creators: name: Lu, Ru-Sen
name: Asada, Keiichi
name: Krichbaum, Thomas P.
name: Park, Jongho
name: Tazaki, Fumie
name: Pu, Hung-Yi
name: Nakamura, Masanori
name: Lobanov, Andrei
name: Hada, Kazuhiro
name: Akiyama, Kazunori
name: Kim, Jae-Young
name: Marti-Vidal, Ivan
name: Gómez, José L.
name: Kawashima, Tomohisa
name: Yuan, Feng
name: Ros, Eduardo
name: Alef, Walter
name: Britzen, Silke
name: Bremer, Michael
name: Broderick, Avery E.
name: Doi, Akihiro
name: Giovannini, Gabriele
name: Giroletti, Marcello
name: Ho, Paul T. P.
name: Honma, Mareki
name: Hughes, David H.
name: Inoue, Makoto
name: Jiang, Wu
name: Kino, Motoki
name: Koyama, Shoko
name: Lindqvist, Michael
name: Liu, Jun
name: Marscher, Alan P.
name: Matsushita, Satoki
name: Nagai, Hiroshi
name: Rottmann, Helge
name: Savolainen, Tuomas
name: Schuster, Karl-Friedrich
name: Shen, Zhi-Qiang
name: de Vicente, Pablo
name: Walker, R. Craig
name: Yang, Hai
name: Zensus, J. Anton
name: Algaba, Juan Carlos
name: Allardi, Alexander
name: Bach, Uwe
name: Berthold, Ryan
name: Bintley, Dan
name: Byun, Do-Young
name: Casadio, Carolina
name: Chang, Shu-Hao
name: Chang, Chih-Cheng
name: Chang, Song-Chu
name: Chen, Chung-Chen
name: Chen, Ming-Tang
name: Chilson, Ryan
name: Chuter, Tim C.
name: Conway, John
name: Crew, Geoffrey B.
name: Dempsey, Jessica T.
name: Dornbusch, Sven
name: Faber, Aaron
name: Friberg, Per
name: García, Javier González
name: Garrido, Miguel Gómez
name: Han, Chih-Chiang
name: Han, Kuo-Chang
name: Hasegawa, Yutaka
name: Herrero-Illana, Ruben
name: Huang, Yau-De
name: Huang, Chih-Wei L.
name: Impellizzeri, Violette
name: Jiang, Homin
name: Jinchi, Hao
name: Jung, Taehyun
name: Kallunki, Juha
name: Kirves, Petri
name: Kimura, Kimihiro
name: Koay, Jun Yi
name: Koch, Patrick M.
name: Kramer, Carsten
name: Kraus, Alex
name: Kubo, Derek
name: Kuo, Cheng-Yu
name: Li, Chao-Te
name: Lin, Lupin Chun-Che
name: Liu, Ching-Tang
name: Liu, Kuan-Yu
name: Lo, Wen-Ping
name: Lu, Li-Ming
name: MacDonald, Nicholas
name: Martin-Cocher, Pierre
name: Messias, Hugo
name: Meyer-Zhao, Zheng
name: Minter, Anthony
name: Nair, Dhanya G.
name: Nishioka, Hiroaki
name: Norton, Timothy J.
name: Nystrom, George
name: Ogawa, Hideo
name: Oshiro, Peter
name: Patel, Nimesh A
name: Pen, Ue-Li
name: Pidopryhora, Yurii
name: Pradel, Nicolas
name: Raffin, Philippe A.
name: Rao, Ramprasad
name: Ruiz, Ignacio
name: Sanchez, Salvador
name: Shaw, Paul
name: Snow, William
name: Sridharan, T. K.
name: Srinivasan, Ranjani
name: Tercero, Belén
name: Torne, Pablo
name: Traianou, Efthalia
name: Wagner, Jan
name: Walther, Craig
name: Wei, Ta-Shun
name: Yang, Jun
name: Yu, Chen-Yu
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2023
Subjects: subject: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)
subject: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)
subject: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: The nearby radio galaxy M87 is a prime target for studying black hole accretion and jet formation^{1,2}. Event Horizon Telescope observations of M87 in 2017, at a wavelength of 1.3 mm, revealed a ring-like structure, which was interpreted as gravitationally lensed emission around a central black hole^3. Here we report images of M87 obtained in 2018, at a wavelength of 3.5 mm, showing that the compact radio core is spatially resolved. High-resolution imaging shows a ring-like structure of 8.4_{-1.1}^{+0.5} Schwarzschild radii in diameter, approximately 50% larger than that seen at 1.3 mm. The outer edge at 3.5 mm is also larger than that at 1.3 mm. This larger and thicker ring indicates a substantial contribution from the accretion flow with absorption effects in addition to the gravitationally lensed ring-like emission. The images show that the edge-brightened jet connects to the accretion flow of the black hole. Close to the black hole, the emission profile of the jet-launching region is wider than the expected profile of a black-hole-driven jet, suggesting the possible presence of a wind associated with the accretion flow.
description: 50 pages, 18 figures, 3 tables, author's version of the paper published in Nature