Invited Presentation

The Event Horizon Telescope Experiment: Imaging and Time Resolving Black Holes

Author(s): Shep Doeleman (MIT/SAO) for the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration

Presenter: Sheperd Doeleman (MIT & Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory)

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is a short-wavelength Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) array, which can observe the nearest supermassive black holes with Schwarzschild Radius resolution. Initial observations with the EHT have revealed event horizon scale structure in SgrA*, the 4 million solar mass black hole at the Galactic Center, and in the much more luminous and massive black hole at the center of the giant elliptical galaxy M87. Over the next 2-3 years, this international project will add new sites and increase observing bandwidth to focus on astrophysics at the black hole boundary. EHT data products will have an unprecedented combination of sensitivity and resolution with excellent prospects for imaging strong GR signatures, detecting magnetic field structures through full polarization observations, time-resolving black hole orbits, testing GR, and modeling black hole accretion, outflow and jet production. This talk will describe the technological breakthroughs that enable the project, introduce the latest EHT observations and provide a roadmap for what lies ahead.