The Polarized Image of a Synchrotron-emitting Ring of Gas Orbiting a Black Hole
Ramesh Narayan, Daniel C. M. Palumbo, Michael D. Johnson, Zachary Gelles, Elizabeth Himwich, Dominic O. Chang, Angelo Ricarte, Jason Dexter, Charles F. Gammie, Andrew A. Chael, Kazunori Akiyama, Antxon Alberdi, Walter Alef, Juan Carlos Algaba, Richard Anantua, Keiichi Asada, Rebecca Azulay, Anne-Kathrin Baczko, David Ball, Mislav Baloković, John Barrett, Bradford A. Benson, Dan Bintley, Lindy Blackburn, Raymond Blundell, Wilfred Boland, Katherine L. Bouman, Geoffrey C. Bower, Hope Boyce, Michael Bremer, Christiaan D. Brinkerink, Roger Brissenden, Silke Britzen, Avery E. Broderick, Dominique Broguiere, Thomas Bronzwaer, Do-Young Byun, John E. Carlstrom, Chi-kwan Chan, Shami Chatterjee, Koushik Chatterjee, Ming-Tang Chen, Yongjun 军 Chen 陈永, Paul M. Chesler, Ilje Cho, Pierre Christian, John E. Conway, James M. Cordes, Thomas M. Crawford, Geoffrey B. Crew, Alejandro Cruz-Osorio, Yuzhu Cui, Jordy Davelaar, Mariafelicia De Laurentis, Roger Deane, Jessica Dempsey, Gregory Desvignes, Sheperd S. Doeleman, Ralph P. Eatough, Heino Falcke, Joseph Farah, Vincent L. Fish, Ed Fomalont, H. Alyson Ford, Raquel Fraga-Encinas, Per Friberg, Christian M. Fromm, Antonio Fuentes, Peter Galison, Roberto García, Olivier Gentaz, Boris Georgiev, Ciriaco Goddi, Roman Gold, José L. Gómez, Arturo I. Gómez-Ruiz, Minfeng 峰 Gu 顾敏, Mark Gurwell, Kazuhiro Hada, Daryl Haggard, Michael H. Hecht, Ronald Hesper, Luis C. 山 Ho 何子, Paul Ho, Mareki Honma, Chih-Wei L. Huang, Lei 磊 Huang 黄, David H. Hughes, Shiro Ikeda, Makoto Inoue, Sara Issaoun, David J. James, Buell T. Jannuzi, Michael Janssen, Britton Jeter, Wu 悟 Jiang 江, Alejandra Jimenez-Rosales, Svetlana Jorstad, Taehyun Jung, Mansour Karami
Abstract
Abstract Synchrotron radiation from hot gas near a black hole results in a polarized image. The image polarization is determined by effects including the orientation of the magnetic field in the emitting region, relativistic motion of the gas, strong gravitational lensing by the black hole, and parallel transport in the curved spacetime. We explore these effects using a simple model of an axisymmetric, equatorial accretion disk around a Schwarzschild black hole. By using an approximate expression for the null geodesics derived by Beloborodov and conservation of the Walker–Penrose constant, we provide analytic estimates for the image polarization. We test this model using currently favored general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations of M87*, using ring parameters given by the simulations. For a subset of these with modest Faraday effects, we show that the ring model broadly reproduces the polarimetric image morphology. Our model also predicts the polarization evolution for compact flaring regions, such as those observed from Sgr A* with GRAVITY. With suitably chosen parameters, our simple model can reproduce the EVPA pattern and relative polarized intensity in Event Horizon Telescope images of M87*. Under the physically motivated assumption that the magnetic field trails the fluid velocity, this comparison is consistent with the clockwise rotation inferred from total intensity images.