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The Black Hole Explorer: Motivation and Vision
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We present the Black Hole Explorer (BHEX), a mission that will produce the sharpest images in the history of astronomy by extending submillimeter Very-Long-Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) to space. BHEX will discover and measure the bright and narrow "photon ring" that is predicted to exist in images of black holes, produced from light that has orbited the black hole before escaping. This discovery will expose universal features of a black hole's spacetime that are distinct from the complex astrophysics of the emitting plasma, allowing the first direct measurements of a supermassive black hole's spin. In addition to studying the properties of the nearby supermassive black holes M87* and Sgr A*, BHEX will measure the properties of dozens of additional supermassive black holes, providing crucial insights into the processes that drive their creation and growth. BHEX will also connect these supermassive black holes to their relativistic jets, elucidating the power source for the brightest and most efficient engines in the universe. BHEX will address fundamental open questions in the physics and astrophysics of black holes that cannot be answered without submillimeter space VLBI. The mission is enabled by recent technological breakthroughs, including the development of ultra-high-speed downlink using laser communications, and it leverages billions of dollars of existing ground infrastructure. We present the motivation for BHEX, its science goals and associated requirements, and the pathway to launch within the next decade.
Forward citations
Cited by 6 Pith papers
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Perturbations of Plane Waves and Quadratic Quasinormal Modes on the Lightring
Second-order gravitational perturbations on plane waves are solved with a GHP master equation and tensor harmonics, yielding quadratic quasinormal mode ratios and selection rules.
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Constraints on High-Frequency Gravitational Waves from Graviton-Photon Conversion in the M87 Galaxy
Graviton–photon conversion in M87's magnetic field sets h_c and Ωgw h² limits 1–5 orders of magnitude tighter than Milky Way-based bounds across 10^10–10^27 Hz.
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Critical Behavior of Photon Rings in Kerr-Bertotti-Robinson Spacetime
For a magnetized Kerr-Bertotti-Robinson black hole, the photon-ring parameters gamma, delta, and tau all decrease compared with the unmagnetized Kerr case, weakening the self-similar stacking of higher-order images.
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Photon rings in a holographic toy model
In warped AdS3 black holes, the eikonal quasinormal-mode spectrum is governed exactly by the photon ring's orbital frequency and Lyapunov exponent, with different boundary conditions picking out the outer or inner ring.
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Probing Lorentz-violating effects via precession and accretion disk images of a rotating bumblebee black hole
Lorentz violation in a rotating bumblebee black hole suppresses Lense-Thirring precession, increases periastron precession, shrinks the inner shadow, and enhances the lensed ring while leaving the critical curve nearl...
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Signatures of Black Hole Spin in Horizon-Scale Polarimetry
A review of horizon-scale polarized imaging concludes that current EHT data pin down magnetic-field geometry and accretion state more reliably than black-hole spin magnitude or direction.
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