The Black Hole Explorer: Motivation and Vision
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2024
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| author | Johnson, Michael D. Akiyama, Kazunori Baturin, Rebecca Bilyeu, Bryan Blackburn, Lindy Boroson, Don Cardenas-Avendano, Alejandro Chael, Andrew Chan, Chi-kwan Chang, Dominic Cheimets, Peter Chou, Cathy Doeleman, Sheperd S. Farah, Joseph Galison, Peter Gamble, Ronald Gammie, Charles F. Gelles, Zachary Gomez, Jose L. Gralla, Samuel E. Grimes, Paul Gurvits, Leonid I. Hadar, Shahar Haworth, Kari Hada, Kazuhiro Hecht, Michael H. Honma, Mareki Houston, Janice Hudson, Ben Issaoun, Sara Jia, He Jorstad, Svetlana Kauffmann, Jens Kovalev, Yuri Y. Kurczynski, Peter Lafon, Robert Lupsasca, Alexandru Lehmensiek, Robert Ma, Chung-Pei Marrone, Daniel P. Marscher, Alan P. Melnick, Gary J. Narayan, Ramesh Niinuma, Kotaro Noble, Scott C. Palmer, Eric J. Palumbo, Daniel C. M. Paritsky, Lenny Peretz, Eliad Pesce, Dominic Plavin, Alexander Quataert, Eliot Rana, Hannah Ricarte, Angelo Roelofs, Freek Shtyrkova, Katia Sinclair, Laura C. Small, Jeffrey Kumara, Sridharan Tirupati Srinivasan, Ranjani Strominger, Andrew Tiede, Paul Tong, Edward Wang, Jade Weintroub, Jonathan Wielgus, Maciek Wong, George Zhang, Xinyue Alice |
| author_facet | Johnson, Michael D. Akiyama, Kazunori Baturin, Rebecca Bilyeu, Bryan Blackburn, Lindy Boroson, Don Cardenas-Avendano, Alejandro Chael, Andrew Chan, Chi-kwan Chang, Dominic Cheimets, Peter Chou, Cathy Doeleman, Sheperd S. Farah, Joseph Galison, Peter Gamble, Ronald Gammie, Charles F. Gelles, Zachary Gomez, Jose L. Gralla, Samuel E. Grimes, Paul Gurvits, Leonid I. Hadar, Shahar Haworth, Kari Hada, Kazuhiro Hecht, Michael H. Honma, Mareki Houston, Janice Hudson, Ben Issaoun, Sara Jia, He Jorstad, Svetlana Kauffmann, Jens Kovalev, Yuri Y. Kurczynski, Peter Lafon, Robert Lupsasca, Alexandru Lehmensiek, Robert Ma, Chung-Pei Marrone, Daniel P. Marscher, Alan P. Melnick, Gary J. Narayan, Ramesh Niinuma, Kotaro Noble, Scott C. Palmer, Eric J. Palumbo, Daniel C. M. Paritsky, Lenny Peretz, Eliad Pesce, Dominic Plavin, Alexander Quataert, Eliot Rana, Hannah Ricarte, Angelo Roelofs, Freek Shtyrkova, Katia Sinclair, Laura C. Small, Jeffrey Kumara, Sridharan Tirupati Srinivasan, Ranjani Strominger, Andrew Tiede, Paul Tong, Edward Wang, Jade Weintroub, Jonathan Wielgus, Maciek Wong, George Zhang, Xinyue Alice |
| contents | 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. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2406_12917 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2024 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | The Black Hole Explorer: Motivation and Vision Johnson, Michael D. Akiyama, Kazunori Baturin, Rebecca Bilyeu, Bryan Blackburn, Lindy Boroson, Don Cardenas-Avendano, Alejandro Chael, Andrew Chan, Chi-kwan Chang, Dominic Cheimets, Peter Chou, Cathy Doeleman, Sheperd S. Farah, Joseph Galison, Peter Gamble, Ronald Gammie, Charles F. Gelles, Zachary Gomez, Jose L. Gralla, Samuel E. Grimes, Paul Gurvits, Leonid I. Hadar, Shahar Haworth, Kari Hada, Kazuhiro Hecht, Michael H. Honma, Mareki Houston, Janice Hudson, Ben Issaoun, Sara Jia, He Jorstad, Svetlana Kauffmann, Jens Kovalev, Yuri Y. Kurczynski, Peter Lafon, Robert Lupsasca, Alexandru Lehmensiek, Robert Ma, Chung-Pei Marrone, Daniel P. Marscher, Alan P. Melnick, Gary J. Narayan, Ramesh Niinuma, Kotaro Noble, Scott C. Palmer, Eric J. Palumbo, Daniel C. M. Paritsky, Lenny Peretz, Eliad Pesce, Dominic Plavin, Alexander Quataert, Eliot Rana, Hannah Ricarte, Angelo Roelofs, Freek Shtyrkova, Katia Sinclair, Laura C. Small, Jeffrey Kumara, Sridharan Tirupati Srinivasan, Ranjani Strominger, Andrew Tiede, Paul Tong, Edward Wang, Jade Weintroub, Jonathan Wielgus, Maciek Wong, George Zhang, Xinyue Alice Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics Astrophysics of Galaxies High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 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. |
| title | The Black Hole Explorer: Motivation and Vision |
| topic | Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics Astrophysics of Galaxies High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.12917 |