2026
article
Spatially resolved polarization swings in the supermassive binary black hole candidate OJ 287 with first Event Horizon Telescope observations
José L. Gómez, Ilje Cho, Efthalia Traianou, Thomas P. Krichbaum, Guang-Yao Zhao, Rocco Lico, Antonio Fuentes, Marianna Foschi, Rohan Dahale, Boris Georgiev, Kotaro Moriyama, Maciek Wielgus, Roman Gold, Dominic W. Pesce, Hendrik Müller, Svetlana Jorstad, Teresa Toscano, Jan Röder, José M. Martí, M. Perucho, Yuri Y. Kovalev, S. Komossa, Achamveedu Gopakumar, Mauri J. Valtonen, Gabriele Bruni, Sunil Chandra, Kazunori Akiyama, Ezequiel Albentosa-Ruíz, Antxon Alberdi, Walter Alef, Juan Carlos Algaba, Richard Anantua, Keiichi Asada, Rebecca Azulay, Uwe Bach, Anne-Kathrin Baczko, David Ball, Mislav Baloković, Bidisha Bandyopadhyay, John Barrett, Michi Bauböck, Bradford A. Benson, Dan Bintley, Lindy Blackburn, Raymond Blundell, Katherine L. Bouman, Geoffrey C. Bower, Michael Bremer, Roger Brissenden, S. Britzen, Avery E. Broderick, Dominique Broguière, Thomas Bronzwaer, Sandra Bustamante, Douglas F. Carlos, John E. Carlstrom, Andrew Chael, Chi Kwan Chan, Chi‐kwan Chan, Koushik Chatterjee, Shami Chatterjee, Ming‐Tang Chen, Xiaopeng Cheng, Pierre Christian, Nicholas S. Conroy, John E. Conway, T. M. Crawford, G. Crew, Alejandro Cruz-Osorio, Brandon Curd, J. Davelaar, Mariafelicia De Laurentis, Roger Deane, Jessica Dempsey, G. Desvignes, Jason Dexter, Vedant Dhruv, Indu K. Dihingia, Sheperd S. Doeleman, Sergio A. Dzib, Ralph P. Eatough, Razieh Emami, Heino Falcke, Joseph Farah, Vincent L. Fish, Edward Fomalont, H. Alyson Ford, Raquel Fraga-Encinas, William T. Freeman, Per Friberg, Christian M. Fromm, Peter Galison, Charles F. Gammie, R Garcia, Olivier Gentaz, Gertie Geertsema, C. Goddi, Arturo I. Gómez-Ruiz, Mark Gurwell, Kazuhiro Hada, Daryl Haggard, Ronald Hesper, Dirk Heumann, Paul Ho, Mareki Honma, Chih-Wei L. Huang, David H. Hughes, Shiro Ikeda, C. M. Violette Impellizzeri, Makoto Inoue, Sara Issaoun, D. J. James, Buell T. Jannuzi, Michael Janssen, Britton Jeter, Alejandra Jiménez-Rosales, K. Johns, Adam C. Jones, Abhishek V. Joshi, Taehyun Jung, Ramesh Karuppusamy, Tomohisa Kawashima, Katie M. Keating, Mark Kettenis, Dong-Jin Kim, Jae-Young Kim, Jinwoo Kim, Junhan Kim, Motoki Kino, Jun Yi Koay, Prashant Kocherlakota, Yutaro Kofuji, Patrick M. Koch, Shoko Koyama, Carsten Kramer, Joana A. Kramer, Michael Kramer, Cheng‐Yu Kuo, Noemi La Bella, Lee Sw, Aviad Levis, Greg Lindahl, M. Lindqvist, Mikhail Lisakov, Kuo Liu, Elisabetta Liuzzo, Wen-Ping Lo, Andrei P. Lobanov, Laurent Loinard, Colin J. Lonsdale, A. E. Lowitz, Nicholas R. MacDonald, Nicola Marchili, Sera Markoff, Daniel P. Marrone, Alan P. Marscher, I. Martí‐Vidal, Satoki Matsushita, Lynn D. Matthews, Lia Medeiros, Karl M. Menten, Izumi Mizuno, Yosuke Mizuno, Joshua Montgomery, J. M. Moran, Monika Moscibrodzka, Wanga Mulaudzi, Cornelia Müller, Alejandro Mus, Gibwa Musoke, Ioannis Myserlis, Hiroshi Nagai, Neil M. Nagar, Dhanya G. Nair, Masanori Nakamura, Gopal Narayanan, Iniyan Natarajan, Antonios Nathanail, Santiago Navarro Fuentes, Joey Neilsen, Chunchong Ni, Michael A. Nowak, Junghwan Oh, Hiroki Okino, Héctor Raúl Olivares Sánchez, Tomoaki Oyama, Feryal Özel, Daniel C. M. Palumbo, Georgios Filippos Paraschos, Jongho Park, Harriet Parsons, Nimesh Patel, Ue‐Li Pen, Vincent Piétu, Aleksandar PopStefanija, Oliver Porth, Ben Prather, Giacomo Principe, Dimitrios Psaltis, Hung-Yi Pu, Venkatessh Ramakrishnan, Ramprasad Rao, Mark G. Rawlings, Luciano Rezzolla, Angelo Ricarte, Bart Ripperda, Freek Roelofs, Cristina Romero-Cañizales, Eduardo Ros, Arash Roshanineshat, Helge Rottmann, A. L. Roy, Ignacio Ruiz, Chet Ruszczyk, K. L. J. Rygl, Salvador Sánchez, David Sánchez-Argüelles, Miguel Sánchez-Portal, Mahito Sasada, Kaushik Satapathy, Saurabh, Tuomas Savolainen, F. Peter Schloerb, Jonathan Schonfeld, K. Schüster, Lijing Shao, Sasikumar Silpa, Des Small, Bong Won Sohn, Jason SooHoo, Saurabh, Kamal Souccar, Joshua S. Stanway, Fumie Tazaki, Alexandra J. Tetarenko, Paul Tiede, Remo P. J. Tilanus, M. A. Titus, Kenji Toma, Pablo Torné, Tyler Trent, Sascha Trippe, Matthew Turk, Ilse van Bemmel, Huib Jan van Langevelde, Daniel R. van Rossum, Jesse Vos, Jan Wagner, D. Ward–Thompson, John Wardle, Jasmin E. Washington, Jonathan Weintroub, Robert Wharton, Kaj Wiik, Gunther Witzel, Michael F. Wondrak, George N. Wong, Nitika Yadlapalli, Paul Yamaguchi, Aristomenis Yfantis, Doosoo Yoon, André Young, Ziri Younsi, J. Anton Zensus, Shuo Zhang
0Citations signalées, ce qui n’est pas une note de qualité
0Institutions déclarées
0Pays d’affiliation déclarés
Le résumé fourni par la source
We present the first Event Horizon Telescope 1.3 mm observations of the supermassive binary black hole candidate OJ 287. The observations achieved an unprecedented angular resolution of 18 μas and reveal significant structural and polarization variability over just five days, marking the shortest timescale on which such changes have been directly imaged in this source. The inner jet exhibits a twisted ridgeline structure, with features displaying apparent superluminal motions up to about 22 c. The linear polarization maps reveal three main polarized features whose electric-vector position angles (EVPAs) change substantially over the time span of our observations, including a component with a radial polarization consistent with being produced by a recollimation shock. Most notably, we directly resolved two innermost jet components whose EVPAs rotate in opposite directions. The faster component, moving at 2.4 ± 0.9 μas/day (17.4 ± 6.5 c), exhibits counterclockwise EVPA swings of roughly 3.7° per day, while the slower component, with a proper motion of 1.4 ± 0.3 μas/day (10.2 ± 2.2 c), rotates clockwise at approximately 2.5° per day. Previous studies inferred helical magnetic fields in AGN jets from time-resolved or integrated polarization variability but lacked the angular resolution to directly image this effect. Our results provide spatially resolved evidence that a helical magnetic field threads the jet’s collimation and acceleration zone, ruling out models based on the superposition of unresolved components. Our analysis suggests that propagating shocks interact with a Kelvin–Helmholtz plasma instability, illuminating different phases of the helical magnetic field and producing the observed polarization spatial and temporal variability. Moreover, our model naturally accounts for the more rapid polarization rotation observed in the faster moving component. Our model predicts even more rapid swings in polarization, which could be tested with future observations featuring a more densely sampled time coverage.
Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.
Le contrôle bibliographique ouvert
La source scientifique ouverte est momentanément indisponible.
Les sujets associés
Astrophysical Phenomena and ObservationsAstrophysics and Cosmic PhenomenaPulsars and Gravitational Waves Research