arXiv subjects

Chunchong Ni

Publications and source records attributed to Chunchong Ni.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Learning to See: Applying Inverse Recurrent Inference Machines to See through Refractive Scattering

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) has produced horizon-resolving images of Sagittarius A* (Sgr A$^*$). Scattering in the turbulent plasma of the interstellar medium distorts the appearance of Sgr A$^*$ on scales only marginally smaller than the fiducial resolution of EHT. Therefore, this process both diffractive blurs and adds stochastic refractive substructures that limits the practical angular resolution of EHT images of Sgr A$^*$. We utilized a novel recurrent neural network machine learning framework to demonstrate that it is possible to mitigate interstellar scattering at wavelengths of $1.3\,{\rm mm}$ near the galactic center up to structures at the scale of $5\mu{as}$ well below the nominal instrumental resolution of EHT, $24\,\mu{\rm as}$.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2022

Probing Accretion Turbulence in the Galactic Center with EHT Polarimetry

Magnetic fields grown by instabilities driven by differential rotation are believed to be essential to accretion onto black holes. These instabilities saturate in a turbulent state; therefore, the spatial and temporal variability in the horizon-resolving images of Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) will be able to empirically assess this critical aspect of accretion theory. However, interstellar scattering blurs high-frequency radio images from the Galactic center and introduces spurious small-scale structures, complicating the interpretation of spatial fluctuations in the image. We explore the impact of interstellar scattering on the polarized images of Sgr A* and demonstrate that for credible physical parameters, the intervening scattering is non-birefringent. Therefore, we construct a scattering mitigation scheme that exploits horizon-resolving polarized millimeter/submillimeter VLBI observations to generate statistical measures of the intrinsic spatial fluctuations and therefore the underlying accretion flow turbulence. An optimal polarization basis is identified, corresponding to measurements of the fluctuations in magnetic field orientation in three dimensions. We validate our mitigation scheme using simulated data sets and find that current and future ground-based experiments will readily be able to accurately measure the image-fluctuation power spectrum.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2022

The Photon Ring in M87*

We report measurements of the gravitationally lensed secondary image -- the first in an infinite series of so-called "photon rings" -- around the supermassive black hole M87* via simultaneous modeling and imaging of the 2017 Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) observations. The inferred ring size remains constant across the seven days of the 2017 EHT observing campaign and is consistent with theoretical expectations, providing clear evidence that such measurements probe spacetime and a striking confirmation of the models underlying the first set of EHT results. The residual diffuse emission evolves on timescales comparable to one week. We are able to detect with high significance a southwestern extension consistent with that expected from the base of a jet that is rapidly rotating in the clockwise direction. This result adds further support to the identification of the jet in M87* with a black hole spin-driven outflow, launched via the Blandford-Znajek process. We present three revised estimates for the mass of M87* based on identifying the modeled thin ring component with the bright ringlike features seen in simulated images, one of which is only weakly sensitive to the astrophysics of the emission region. All three estimates agree with each other and previously reported values. Our strongest mass constraint combines information from both the ring and the diffuse emission region, which together imply a mass-to-distance ratio of $4.20^{+0.12}_{-0.06}~μ{\rm as}$ and a corresponding black hole mass of $(7.13\pm0.39)\times10^9M_\odot$, where the error on the latter is now dominated by the systematic uncertainty arising from the uncertain distance to M87*.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2021

Event Horizon Telescope observations of the jet launching and collimation in Centaurus A

Very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations of active galactic nuclei at millimeter wavelengths have the power to reveal the launching and initial collimation region of extragalactic radio jets, down to $10-100$ gravitational radii ($r_g=GM/c^2$) scales in nearby sources. Centaurus A is the closest radio-loud source to Earth. It bridges the gap in mass and accretion rate between the supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in Messier 87 and our galactic center. A large southern declination of $-43^{\circ}$ has however prevented VLBI imaging of Centaurus A below $λ1$cm thus far. Here, we show the millimeter VLBI image of the source, which we obtained with the Event Horizon Telescope at $228$GHz. Compared to previous observations, we image Centaurus A's jet at a tenfold higher frequency and sixteen times sharper resolution and thereby probe sub-lightday structures. We reveal a highly-collimated, asymmetrically edge-brightened jet as well as the fainter counterjet. We find that Centaurus A's source structure resembles the jet in Messier 87 on ${\sim}500r_g$ scales remarkably well. Furthermore, we identify the location of Centaurus A's SMBH with respect to its resolved jet core at $λ1.3$mm and conclude that the source's event horizon shadow should be visible at THz frequencies. This location further supports the universal scale invariance of black holes over a wide range of masses.

astro-ph.GA↗