First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope Results. VII. Polarization of the Ring

The Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration, null;Akiyama, Kazunori;Alberdi, Antxon;Alef, Walter;Algaba, Juan Carlos;Anantua, Richard;Asada, Keiichi;Azulay, Rebecca;Bach, Uwe;Baczko, Anne-Kathrin;Ball, David;Balokovic, Mislav;Bandyopadhyay, Bidisha;Barrett, John;Bauböck, Michi;Benson, Bradford A.;Bintley, Dan;Blackburn, Lindy;Blundell, Raymond;Bouman, Katherine L.;Bower, Geoffrey C.;Boyce, Hope;Bremer, Michael;Brinkerink, Christiaan D.;Brissenden, Roger;Britzen, Silke;Broderick, Avery E.;Broguiere, Dominique;Bronzwaer, Thomas;Bustamante, Sandra;Byun, Do-Young;Carlstrom, John E.;Ceccobello, Chiara;Chael, Andrew;Chan, Chi-kwan;Chang, Dominic O.;Chatterjee, Koushik;Chatterjee, Shami;Chen, Ming-Tang;Chen 陈, Yongjun 永军;Cheng, Xiaopeng;Cho, Ilje;Christian, Pierre;Conroy, Nicholas S.;Conway, John E.;Cordes, James M.;Crawford, Thomas M.;Crew, Geoffrey B.;Cruz-Osorio, Alejandro;Cui 崔, Yuzhu 玉竹;Dahale, Rohan;Davelaar, Jordy;De Laurentis, Mariafelicia;Deane, Roger;Dempsey, Jessica;Desvignes, Gregory;Dexter, Jason;Dhruv, Vedant;Dihingia, Indu K.;Doeleman, Sheperd S.;Dougal, Sean Taylor;Dzib, Sergio A.;Eatough, Ralph P.;Emami, Razieh;Falcke, Heino;Farah, Joseph;Fish, Vincent L.;Fomalont, Edward;Ford, H. Alyson;Foschi, Marianna;Fraga-Encinas, Raquel;Freeman, William T.;Friberg, Per;Fromm, Christian M.;Fuentes, Antonio;Galison, Peter;Gammie, Charles F.;García, Roberto;Gentaz, Olivier;Georgiev, Boris;Goddi, Ciriaco;Gold, Roman;Gómez-Ruiz, Arturo I.;Gómez, José L.;Gu 顾, Minfeng 敏峰;Gurwell, Mark;Hada, Kazuhiro;Haggard, Daryl;Haworth, Kari;Hecht, Michael H.;Hesper, Ronald;Heumann, Dirk;Ho 何, Luis C. 子山;Ho, Paul;Honma, Mareki;Huang, Chih-Wei L.;Huang 黄, Lei 磊;Hughes, David H.;Ikeda, Shiro;Impellizzeri, C. M. Violette;Inoue, Makoto;Issaoun, Sara;James, David J.;Jannuzi, Buell T.;Janssen, Michael;Jeter, Britton;Jiang 江, Wu 悟;Jiménez-Rosales, Alejandra;Johnson, Michael D.;Jorstad, Svetlana;Joshi, Abhishek V.;Jung, Taehyun;Karami, Mansour;Karuppusamy, Ramesh;Kawashima, Tomohisa;Keating, Garrett K.;Kettenis, Mark;Kim, Dong-Jin;Kim, Jae-Young;Kim, Jongsoo;Kim, Junhan;Kino, Motoki;Koay, Jun Yi;Kocherlakota, Prashant;Kofuji, Yutaro;Koch, Patrick M.;Koyama, Shoko;Kramer, Carsten;Kramer, Joana A.;Kramer, Michael;Krichbaum, Thomas P.;Kuo, Cheng-Yu;La Bella, Noemi;Lauer, Tod R.;Lee, Daeyoung;Lee, Sang-Sung;Leung, Po Kin;Levis, Aviad;Li 李, Zhiyuan 志远;Lico, Rocco;Lindahl, Greg;Lindqvist, Michael;Lisakov, Mikhail;Liu 刘, Jun 俊;Liu, Kuo;Liuzzo, Elisabetta;Lo, Wen-Ping;Lobanov, Andrei P.;Loinard, Laurent;Lonsdale, Colin J.;Lowitz, Amy E.;Lu 路, Ru-Sen 如森;MacDonald, Nicholas R.;Mao 毛, Jirong 基荣;Marchili, Nicola;Markoff, Sera;Marrone, Daniel P.;Marscher, Alan P.;Martí-Vidal, Iván;Matsushita, Satoki;Matthews, Lynn D.;Medeiros, Lia;Menten, Karl M.;Michalik, Daniel;Mizuno, Izumi;Mizuno, Yosuke;Moran, James M.;Moriyama, Kotaro;Moscibrodzka, Monika;Mulaudzi, Wanga;Müller, Cornelia;Müller, Hendrik;Mus, Alejandro;Musoke, Gibwa;Myserlis, Ioannis;Nadolski, Andrew;Nagai, Hiroshi;Nagar, Neil M.;Nakamura, Masanori;Narayanan, Gopal;Natarajan, Iniyan;Nathanail, Antonios;Navarro Fuentes, Santiago;Neilsen, Joey;Neri, Roberto;Ni, Chunchong;Noutsos, Aristeidis;Nowak, Michael A.;Oh, Junghwan;Okino, Hiroki;Olivares, Hèctor;Ortiz-León, Gisela N.;Oyama, Tomoaki;Özel, Feryal;Palumbo, Daniel C. M.;Paraschos, Georgios Filippos;Park, Jongho;Parsons, Harriet;Patel, Nimesh;Pen, Ue-Li;Pesce, Dominic W.;Piétu, Vincent;Plambeck, Richard;PopStefanija, Aleksandar;Porth, Oliver;Pötzl, Felix M.;Prather, Ben;Preciado-López, Jorge A.;Psaltis, Dimitrios;Pu, Hung-Yi;Ramakrishnan, Venkatessh;Rao, Ramprasad;Rawlings, Mark G.;Raymond, Alexander W.;Rezzolla, Luciano;Ricarte, Angelo;Ripperda, Bart;Roelofs, Freek;Rogers, Alan;Romero-Cañizales, Cristina;Ros, Eduardo;Roshanineshat, Arash;Rottmann, Helge;Roy, Alan L.;Ruiz, Ignacio;Ruszczyk, Chet;Rygl, Kazi L. J.;Sánchez, Salvador;Sánchez-Argüelles, David;Sánchez-Portal, Miguel;Sasada, Mahito;Satapathy, Kaushik;Savolainen, Tuomas;Schloerb, F. Peter;Schonfeld, Jonathan;Schuster, Karl-Friedrich;Shao, Lijing;Shen 沈, Zhiqiang 志强;Small, Des;Sohn, Bong Won;SooHoo, Jason;Sosapanta Salas, León David;Souccar, Kamal;Stanway, Joshua S.;Sun 孙, He 赫;Tazaki, Fumie;Tetarenko, Alexandra J.;Tiede, Paul;Tilanus, Remo P. J.;Titus, Michael;Torne, Pablo;Toscano, Teresa;Traianou, Efthalia;Trent, Tyler;Trippe, Sascha;Turk, Matthew;van Bemmel, Ilse;van Langevelde, Huib Jan;van Rossum, Daniel R.;Vos, Jesse;Wagner, Jan;Ward-Thompson, Derek;Wardle, John;Washington, Jasmin E.;Weintroub, Jonathan;Wharton, Robert;Wielgus, Maciek;Wiik, Kaj;Witzel, Gunther;Wondrak, Michael F.;Wong, George N.;Wu 吴, Qingwen 庆文;Yadlapalli, Nitika;Yamaguchi, Paul;Yfantis, Aristomenis;Yoon, Doosoo;Young, Andrè;Young, Ken;Younsi, Ziri;Yu 于, Wei 威;Yuan 袁, Feng 峰;Yuan 袁, Ye-Fei 业飞;Zensus, J. Anton;Zhang, Shuo;Zhao, Guang-Yao;Zhao 赵, Shan-Shan 杉杉

2024-01-01

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Abstract

The Event Horizon Telescope observed the horizon-scale synchrotron emission region around the Galactic center supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), in 2017. These observations revealed a bright, thick ring morphology with a diameter of 51.8 +/- 2.3 mu as and modest azimuthal brightness asymmetry, consistent with the expected appearance of a black hole with mass M approximate to 4 x 10(6)M(circle dot). From these observations, we present the first resolved linear and circular polarimetric images of Sgr A*. The linear polarization images demonstrate that the emission ring is highly polarized, exhibiting a prominent spiral electric vector polarization angle pattern with a peak fractional polarization of similar to 40% in the western portion of the ring. The circular polarization images feature a modestly (similar to 5%-10%) polarized dipole structure along the emission ring, with negative circular polarization in the western region and positive circular polarization in the eastern region, although our methods exhibit stronger disagreement than for linear polarization. We analyze the data using multiple independent imaging and modeling methods, each of which is validated using a standardized suite of synthetic data sets. While the detailed spatial distribution of the linear polarization along the ring remains uncertain owing to the intrinsic variability of the source, the spiraling polarization structure is robust to methodological choices. The degree and orientation of the linear polarization provide stringent constraints for the black hole and its surrounding magnetic fields, which we discuss in an accompanying publication.