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Extracting astrophysics from black hole images

ORAL

Abstract

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is providing images of a supermassive black hole. These images are fundamentally related to properties of the accretion disk, since the black holes themselves produce no light. We develop a simple prescription to relate observational features of the images to phenomenological characteristics of accretion disks such as the intensity profile and disk inclination. Comparing smoothed theoretical results to the EHT image for M87*, we provide constraints on the mass of the black hole and accretion disk profiles for M87*.

Presenters

  • Alexandra G Hanselman

    University of Chicago

Authors

  • Alexandra G Hanselman

    University of Chicago

  • Daniel Holz

    University of Chicago