Selective dynamical imaging of interferometric data
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Date
Authors
Farah, Joseph
Galison, Peter
Akiyama3, Kazunori
Bouman3, Katherine L.
Bower, Geoffrey C.
Chael, Andrew
Fuentes, Antonio
Gomez, José L.
Honma, Mareki
Johnson, Michael D.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
IOP Publishing
Abstract
Recent developments in very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) have made it possible for the Event Horizon
Telescope (EHT) to resolve the innermost accretion flows of the largest supermassive black holes on the sky. The
sparse nature of the EHT’s (u, v)-coverage presents a challenge when attempting to resolve highly time-variable
sources. We demonstrate that the changing (u, v)-coverage of the EHT can contain regions of time over the course
of a single observation that facilitate dynamical imaging. These optimal time regions typically have projected
baseline distributions that are approximately angularly isotropic and radially homogeneous. We derive a metric of
coverage quality based on baseline isotropy and density that is capable of ranking array configurations by their
ability to produce accurate dynamical reconstructions. We compare this metric to existing metrics in the literature
and investigate their utility by performing dynamical reconstructions on synthetic data from simulated EHT
observations of sources with simple orbital variability. We then use these results to make recommendations for
imaging the 2017 EHT Sgr A* data set
Description
Keywords
Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), Selective Dynamical Imaging, Very long baseline interferometry (VLBI), Selective dynamical imaging, Astrophysical black holes, Aperture synthesis, Interferometry
Sustainable Development Goals
Citation
Farah, J., Galison, P., Akiyama, K. et al. 2022, 'Selective Dynamical Imaging of Interferometric Data', The Astrophysical Journal Letters, vol. 930, no. 2, art. L18, pp. 1-21, doi : 10.3847/2041-8213/ac6615.