Search

As part of the GLOSTAR survey we have used the VLA in its B-configuration to observe the part of the Galactic plane between longitudes of 28d and 36d and latitudes from -1d to +1d at the C-band (4--8 GHz). To reduce the contamination of extended sources that are not well recovered by our coverage of the (u, v)-plane we discarded short baselines that are sensitive to emission on angular scales $, 25 pages, 15 figures, and 6 tables, Accepted for publication in the Astronomy \& Astrophysics

Context. While over 1000 supernova remnants (SNRs) are estimated to exist in the Milky Way, only less than 400 have been found to date. In the context of this apparent deficiency, more than 150 SNR candidates were recently identified in the D-configuration Very Large Array (VLA-D) continuum images of the 4--8 GHz global view on star formation (GLOSTAR) survey, in the Galactic longitude range $-2^\circ, To be published in A&A. 21 pages, 15 figures

The high-mass X-ray binary LS I +61��303 exhibits variability in its radio and X-ray emissions, ranging from minute to hour time-scales. At such short time-scales, not much is known about the possible correlations between these two emissions from this source, which might offer hints to their origin. Here, we study the relationship between these emissions using simultaneous X-ray and radio monitoring. We present new radio observations using the Arcminute Microkelvin Imager Large Array telescope at two frequency bands, 13-15.5 and 15.5-18 GHz. We also describe new X-ray observations performed using the XMM-Newton telescope. These X-ray and radio observations overlapped for five hours. We find for the first time that the radio and X-ray emission are correlated up to 81 per cent with their few percent variability correlated up to 40 per cent. We discuss possible physical scenarios that produces the observed correlations and variability in the radio and X-ray emission of LS I +61��303., 8 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

The GLOSTAR survey will study the star formation in the Galactic plane between $-2^{\circ}< \textit{l}< 85^{\circ}$ and $|b| < 1^{\circ}$ with unprecedented sensitivity in both, flux density ($\sim$ 40 $��Jy$ beam$^{-1}$) and range of angular scales ($\sim$ 1."5 to the largest radio structures in the Galaxy). In this paper we present the first results obtained from a radio continuum map of a 16 square degree sized region of the Galactic plane centered on $\textit{l} = 32^{\circ}$ and $b = 0^{\circ}$ ($28^{\circ} < \textit{l} < 36^{\circ}$ and $|b| < 1^{\circ}$). This map has a resolution of 18" and sensitivity of $\sim$ 60-150 $��Jy$ beam$^{-1}$. We present data acquired with the VLA in D-configuration. Two 1 GHz wide sub-bands were observed simultaneously and centred at 4.7 and 6.9 GHz. These data were calibrated and imaged using the $\textit{Obit}$ software package. The source extraction has been performed using the BLOBCAT software package and verified through a combination of visual inspection and cross-matching with other radio and mid-infrared surveys. The final catalog consists of 1575 discrete radio sources and 27 large scale structures (including W43 and W44). By cross-matching with other catalogs and calculating the spectral indices ($S(��) \propto ��^��$), we have classified 231 continuum sources as HII regions, 37 as ionization fronts, and 46 as planetary nebulae. The longitude and latitude distribution and negative spectral indices are all consistent with the vast majority of the unclassified sources being extragalactic background sources. We present a catalog of 1575 radio continuum sources and discuss their physical properties, emission nature and relation with previously reported. These first GLOSTAR results have increased the number of reliable HII regions in this part of the Galaxy by a factor of four., 24 pages, 23 figures, Accepted by Astronomy & Astrophysics journal

Barnard 59 and Lupus 1 are two nearby star-forming regions visible from the southern hemisphere. In this manuscript, we present deep ($\sigma$ $\lesssim$ 15 $ \mu$Jy) radio observations ($\nu$ = 6 GHz; $\lambda$ = 5 cm) of these regions, and report the detection of a total of 114 sources. Thirteen of these sources are associated with known young stellar objects, nine in Barnard 59 and four in Lupus 1. The properties of the radio emission (spectral index and, in some cases, polarization) suggest a thermal origin for most young stellar objects. Only for two sources (Sz~65 and Sz~67) are there indications for a possible non-thermal origin; more observations will be needed to ascertain the exact nature of the radio emission in these sources. The remaining radio detections do not have counterparts at other wavelengths, and the number of sources detected per unit solid angle is in agreement with extragalactic number counts. This suggests that all radio sources not associated with known young stellar objects are background extragalactic sources., Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, 5 tables, To apper in Revista Mexicana de Astronomia y Astrofisica

We analyzed 64 radio observations at the frequency of 8.4 GHz of the Wolf-Rayet star WR 112, taken from the Very Large Array archive. These observations cover a time baseline of 13 years, from June 2000 to July 2013. The radio structure of WR 112 is consistent with it being a point source in all the epochs and with its flux density varying from 0.6 mJy to 2.1 mJy. We tried to search for periodicities in these variations but our results were not conclusive. We also looked for extended emission from the infrared nebula that surrounds WR 112, settimg upper limits of 50 $\mu$Jy. Finally, we used the highest angular resolution images to measure the proper motions of WR 112, obtaining $\mu_\alpha\cos \delta = -2.6 \pm 1.1 \mbox{ mas yr$^{-1}$}$, and $\mu_\delta = -5.4 \pm 1.4 \mbox{ mas yr$^{-1}$}$. These proper motions are smaller than those previously reported, but still suggest significant peculiar motions for WR 112., Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, accepted by Revista Mexicana de Astronom\'{\i}a y Astrof\'{\i}sica

Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) observations can provide the position of compact radio sources with an accuracy of order 50 micro-arcseconds. This is sufficient to measure the trigonometric parallax and proper motions of any object within 500 pc of the Sun to better than a few percent. Because they are magnetically active, young stars are often associated with compact radio emission detectable using VLBI techniques. Here we will show how VLBI observations have already constrained the distance to the most often studied nearby regions of star-formation (Taurus, Ophiuchus, Orion, etc.) and have started to provide information on their internal structure and kinematics. We will then briefly describe a large project (called The Gould's Belt Distance Survey) designed to provide a detailed view of star-formation in the Solar neighborhood using VLBI observations., To be published in the Revista Mexicana de Astronomia y Astrofisica (Serie de Conferencias)

All authors: Wielgus, Maciek; Akiyama, Kazunori; Blackburn, Lindy; Chan, Chi-kwan; Dexter, Jason; Doeleman, Sheperd S.; Fish, Vincent L.; Issaoun, Sara; Johnson, Michael D.; Krichbaum, Thomas P.; Lu, Ru-Sen; Pesce, Dominic W.; Wong, George N.; Bower, Geoffrey C.; Broderick, Avery E.; Chael, Andrew; Chatterjee, Koushik; Gammie, Charles F.; Georgiev, Boris; Hada, Kazuhiro Loinard, Laurent; Markoff, Sera; Marrone, Daniel P.; Plambeck, Richard; Weintroub, Jonathan; Dexter, Matthew; MacMahon, David H. E.; Wright, Melvyn; Alberdi, Antxon; Alef, Walter; Asada, Keiichi; Azulay, Rebecca; Baczko, Anne-Kathrin; Ball, David; Baloković, Mislav; Barausse, Enrico; Barrett, John; Bintley, Dan; Boland, Wilfred; Bouman, Katherine L.; Bremer, Michael; Brinkerink, Christiaan D.; Brissenden, Roger; Britzen, Silke; Broguiere, Dominique; Bronzwaer, Thomas; Byun, Do-Young; Carlstrom, John E.; Chatterjee, Shami; Chen, Ming-Tang; Chen, Yongjun; Cho, Ilje; Christian, Pierre; Conway, John E.; Cordes, James M.; Crew, Geoffrey B.; Cui, Yuzhu; Davelaar, Jordy; Laurentis, Mariafelicia De; Deane, Roger; Dempsey, Jessica; Desvignes, Gregory; Dzib, Sergio A.; Eatough, Ralph P.; Falcke, Heino; Fomalont, Ed; Fraga-Encinas, Raquel; Friberg, Per; Fromm, Christian M.; Galison, Peter; García, Roberto; Gentaz, Olivier; Goddi, Ciriaco; Gold, Roman; Gómez, José L.; Gómez-Ruiz, Arturo I.; Gu, Minfeng; Gurwell, Mark; Hecht, Michael H.; Hesper, Ronald; Ho, Luis C.; Ho, Paul; Honma, Mareki; Huang, Chih-Wei L.; Huang, Lei; Hughes, David H.; Inoue, Makoto; James, David J.; Jannuzi, Buell T.; Janssen, Michael; Jeter, Britton; Jiang, Wu; Jimenez-Rosales, Alejandra; Jorstad, Svetlana; Jung, Taehyun; Karami, Mansour; Karuppusamy, Ramesh; Kawashima, Tomohisa; Keating, Garrett K.; Kettenis, Mark; Kim, Jae-Young; Kim, Junhan; Kim, Jongsoo; Kino, Motoki; Koay, Jun Yi; Koch, Patrick M.; Koyama, Shoko; Kramer, Michael; Kramer, Carsten; Kuo, Cheng-Yu; Lauer, Tod R.; Lee, Sang-Sung; Li, Yan-Rong; Li, Zhiyuan; Lindqvist, Michael; Lico, Rocco; Liu, Kuo; Liuzzo, Elisabetta; Lo, Wen-Ping; Lobanov, Andrei P.; Lonsdale, Colin; MacDonald, Nicholas R.; Mao, Jirong; Marchili, Nicola; Marscher, Alan P.; Martí-Vidal, Iván; Matsushita, Satoki; Matthews, Lynn D.; Medeiros, Lia; Menten, Karl M.; Mizuno, Yosuke; Mizuno, Izumi; Moran, James M.; Moriyama, Kotaro; Moscibrodzka, Monika; Müller, Cornelia; Musoke, Gibwa; Nagai, Hiroshi; Nagar, Neil M.; Nakamura, Masanori; Narayan, Ramesh; Narayanan, Gopal; Natarajan, Iniyan; Nathanail, Antonios; Neri, Roberto; Ni, Chunchong; Noutsos, Aristeidis; Okino, Hiroki; Olivares, Héctor; Ortiz-León, Gisela N.; Oyama, Tomoaki; Özel, Feryal; Palumbo, Daniel C. M.; Park, Jongho; Patel, Nimesh; Pen, Ue-Li; Piétu, Vincent; PopStefanija, Aleksandar; Porth, Oliver; Prather, Ben; Preciado-López, Jorge A.; Psaltis, Dimitrios; Pu, Hung-Yi; Ramakrishnan, Venkatessh; Rao, Ramprasad; Rawlings, Mark G.; Raymond, Alexander W.; Rezzolla, Luciano; Ripperda, Bart; Roelofs, Freek; Rogers, Alan; Ros, Eduardo; Rose, Mel; Roshanineshat, Arash; Rottmann, Helge; Roy, Alan L.; Ruszczyk, Chet; Ryan, Benjamin R.; Rygl, Kazi L. J.; Sánchez, Salvador; Sánchez-Arguelles, David; Sasada, Mahito; Savolainen, Tuomas; Schloerb, F. Peter; Schuster, Karl-Friedrich; Shao, Lijing; Shen, Zhiqiang; Small, Des; Sohn, Bong Won; SooHoo, Jason; Tazaki, Fumie; Tiede, Paul; Tilanus, Remo P. J.; Titus, Michael; Toma, Kenji; Torne, Pablo; Trent, Tyler; Traianou, Efthalia; Trippe, Sascha; Tsuda, Shuichiro; Bemmel, Ilse van; van Langevelde, Huib Jan; van Rossum, Daniel R.; Wagner, Jan; Wardle, John; Ward-Thompson, Derek; Wex, Norbert; Wharton, Robert; Wu, Qingwen; Yoon, Doosoo; Young, André; Young, Ken; Younsi, Ziri; Yuan, Feng; Yuan, Ye-Fei; Zensus, J. Anton; Zhao, Guangyao; Zhao, Shan-Shan; Zhu, Ziyan.-- Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI., The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) has recently delivered the first resolved images of M87*, the supermassive black hole in the center of the M87 galaxy. These images were produced using 230 GHz observations performed in 2017 April. Additional observations are required to investigate the persistence of the primary image feature- A ring with azimuthal brightness asymmetry- A nd to quantify the image variability on event horizon scales. To address this need, we analyze M87* data collected with prototype EHT arrays in 2009, 2011, 2012, and 2013. While these observations do not contain enough information to produce images, they are sufficient to constrain simple geometric models. We develop a modeling approach based on the framework utilized for the 2017 EHT data analysis and validate our procedures using synthetic data. Applying the same approach to the observational data sets, we find the M87* morphology in 2009-2017 to be consistent with a persistent asymmetric ring of ∼40 μas diameter. The position angle of the peak intensity varies in time. In particular, we find a significant difference between the position angle measured in 2013 and 2017. These variations are in broad agreement with predictions of a subset of general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations. We show that quantifying the variability across multiple observational epochs has the potential to constrain the physical properties of the source, such as the accretion state or the black hole spin. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society., The authors of the present paper thank the following organizations and programs: the Academy of Finland (projects 274477, 284495, 312496); the Advanced European Network of E-infrastructures for Astronomy with the SKA (AENEAS) project, supported by the European Commission Framework Programme Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation action under grant agreement 731016; the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung; the Black Hole Initiative at Harvard University, through a grant (60477) from the John Templeton Foundation; the China Scholarship Council; Comision Nacional de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnologica (CONICYT, Chile, via PIA ACT172033, Fondecyt projects 1171506 and 3190878, BASAL AFB-170002, ALMA-conicyt 31140007); Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia (CONACYT, Mexico, projects 104497, 275201, 279006, 281692); the Delaney Family via the Delaney Family John A. Wheeler Chair at Perimeter Institute; Direccion General de Asuntos del Personal Academico-Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (DGAPA-UNAM, project IN112417); the European Research Council Synergy Grant "BlackHoleCam: Imaging the Event Horizon of Black Holes" (grant 610058); the Generalitat Valenciana postdoctoral grant APOSTD/2018/177 and GenT Program (project CIDEGENT/2018/021); the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (grants GBMF-3561, GBMF-5278); the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) sezione di Napoli, iniziative specifiche TEONGRAV; the International Max Planck Research School for Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Universities of Bonn and Cologne; the Jansky Fellowship program of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO); the Japanese Government (Monbukagakusho: MEXT) Scholarship; the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Grant-in-Aid for JSPS Research Fellowship (JP17J08829); the Key Research Program of Frontier Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS, grants QYZDJ-SSW-SLH057, QYZDJ-SSW-SYS008, ZDBS-LY-SLH011); the Leverhulme Trust Early Career Research Fellowship; the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (MPG); the Max Planck Partner Group of the MPG and the CAS; the MEXT/JSPS KAKENHI (grants 18KK0090, JP18K13594, JP18K03656, JP18H03721, 18K03709, 18H01245, 25120007); the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI) Funds; the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) of Taiwan (105-2112-M-001-025-MY3, 106-2112-M-001-011, 106-2119-M-001-027, 107-2119-M-001-017, 107-2119-M-001-020, and 107-2119-M-110-005); the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA, Fermi Guest Investigator grant 80NSSC17K0649 and Hubble Fellowship grant HST-HF2-51431.001-A awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. , for NASA, under contract NAS5-26555); the National Institute of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan; the National Key Research and Development Program of China (grant 2016YFA0400704, 2016YFA0400702); the National Science Foundation (NSF, grants AST-0096454, AST-0352953, AST-0521233, AST-0705062, AST-0905844, AST-0922984, AST-1126433, AST-1140030, DGE-1144085, AST-1207704, AST-1207730, AST-1207752, MRI-1228509, OPP-1248097, AST-1310896, AST-1312651, AST-1337663, AST-1440254, AST-1555365, AST-1715061, AST-1615796, AST-1716327, OISE-1743747, AST-1816420); the Natural Science Foundation of China (grants 11573051, 11633006, 11650110427, 10625314, 11721303, 11725312, 11933007); the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC, including a Discovery Grant and the NSERC Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarships-Doctoral Program); the National Youth Thousand Talents Program of China; the National Research Foundation of Korea (the Global PhD Fellowship Grant: grants NRF-2015H1A2A1033752, 2015-R1D1A1A01056807, the Korea Research Fellowship Program: NRF-2015H1D3A1066561); the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) VICI award (grant 639.043.513) and Spinoza Prize SPI 78-409; the New Scientific Frontiers with Precision Radio Interferometry Fellowship awarded by the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO), which is a facility of the National Research Foundation (NRF), an agency of the Department of Science and Technology (DST) of South Africa; the Onsala Space Observatory (OSO) national infrastructure, for the provisioning of its facilities/observational support (OSO receives funding through the Swedish Research Council under grant 2017-00648) the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (research at Perimeter Institute is supported by the Government of Canada through the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development and by the Province of Ontario through the Ministry of Research, Innovation and Science); the Russian Science Foundation (grant 17-12-01029); the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (grants PGC2018-098915-B-C21, AYA2016-80889-P); the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the "Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa" award for the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia (SEV-2017-0709); the Toray Science Foundation; the US Department of Energy (USDOE) through the Los Alamos National Laboratory (operated by Triad National Security, LLC, for the National Nuclear Security Administration of the USDOE (contract 89233218CNA000001)); the Italian Ministero dell'Istruzione Universita e Ricerca through the grant Progetti Premiali 2012-iALMA (CUP C52I13000140001); the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 730562 RadioNet; ALMA North America Development Fund; the Academia Sinica; Chandra TM6-17006X; the GenT Program (Generalitat Valenciana) Project CIDEGENT/2018/021. This work used the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE), supported by NSF grant ACI-1548562, and CyVerse, supported by NSF grants DBI-0735191, DBI-1265383, and DBI-1743442. XSEDE Stampede2 resource at TACC was allocated through TG-AST170024 and TG-AST080026N. XSEDE JetStream resource at PTI and TACC was allocated through AST170028. The simulations were performed in part on the SuperMUC cluster at the LRZ in Garching, on the LOEWE cluster in CSC in Frankfurt, and on the HazelHen cluster at the HLRS in Stuttgart. This research was enabled in part by support provided by Compute Ontario (http://computeontario. ca), Calcul Quebec (http://www.calculquebec.ca), and Compute Canada (http://www.computecanada.ca). We thank the staff at the participating observatories, correlation centers, and institutions for their enthusiastic support. This paper makes use of the following ALMA data: ADS/JAO.ALMA#2016.1.01154.V. ALMA is a partnership of the European Southern Observatory (ESO; Europe, representing its member states), NSF, and National Institutes of Natural Sciences of Japan, together with the National Research Council (Canada), Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST; Taiwan), Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA; Taiwan), and Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI; Republic of Korea), in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. The Joint ALMA Observatory is operated by ESO, Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI)/NRAO, and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). The NRAO is a facility of the NSF operated under cooperative agreement by AUI. APEX is a collaboration between the Max-Planck-Institut fur Radioastronomie (Germany), ESO, and the Onsala Space Observatory (Sweden). The SMA is a joint project between the SAO and ASIAA and is funded by the Smithsonian Institution and the Academia Sinica. The JCMT is operated by the East Asian Observatory on behalf of the NAOJ, ASIAA, and KASI, as well as the Ministry of Finance of China, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the National Key R&D Program (No. 2017YFA0402700) of China. Additional funding support for the JCMT is provided by the Science and Technologies Facility Council (UK) and participating universities in the UK and Canada. The LMT is a project operated by the Instituto Nacional de Astrofisica, ptica, y Electronica (Mexico), and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (USA). The IRAM 30 m telescope on Pico Veleta, Spain is operated by IRAM and supported by CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France), MPG (Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Germany), and IGN (Instituto Geografico Nacional, Spain). The SMT is operated by the Arizona Radio Observatory, a part of the Steward Observatory of the University of Arizona, with financial support of operations from the State of Arizona and financial support for instrumentation development from the NSF. The SPT is supported by the National Science Foundation through grant PLR- 1248097. Partial support is also provided by the NSF Physics Frontier Center grant PHY-1125897 to the Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago, the Kavli Foundation, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation grant GBMF 947. The SPT hydrogen maser was provided on loan from the GLT, courtesy of ASIAA. The EHTC has received generous donations of FPGA chips from Xilinx Inc., under the Xilinx University Program. The EHTC has benefited from technology shared under an open-source license by the Collaboration for Astronomy Signal Processing and Electronics Research (CASPER). The EHT project is grateful to T4Science and Microsemi for their assistance with hydrogen masers. This research has made use of NASA's Astrophysics Data System. We gratefully acknowledge the support provided by the extended staff of the ALMA, both from the inception of the ALMA Phasing Project through the observational campaigns of 2017 and 2018. We would like to thank A. Deller and W. Brisken for EHT-specific support with the use of DiFX. We acknowledge the significance that Maunakea, where the SMA and JCMT EHT stations are located, has for the indigenous Hawaiian people.

When surrounded by a transparent emission region, black holes are expected to reveal a dark shadow caused by gravitational light bending and photon capture at the event horizon. To image and study this phenomenon, we have assembled the Event Horizon Telescope, a global very long baseline interferometry array observing at a wavelength of 1.3 mm. This allows us to reconstruct event-horizon-scale images of the supermassive black hole candidate in the center of the giant elliptical galaxy M87. We have resolved the central compact radio source as an asymmetric bright emission ring with a diameter of 42 ± 3 μas, which is circular and encompasses a central depression in brightness with a flux ratio 10:1. The emission ring is recovered using different calibration and imaging schemes, with its diameter and width remaining stable over four different observations carried out in different days. Overall, the observed image is consistent with expectations for the shadow of a Kerr black hole as predicted by general relativity. The asymmetry in brightness in the ring can be explained in terms of relativistic beaming of the emission from a plasma rotating close to the speed of light around a black hole. We compare our images to an extensive library of ray-traced general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations of black holes and derive a central mass of M = (6.5 ± 0.7) × 109 Me. Our radiowave observations thus provide powerful evidence for the presence of supermassive black holes in centers of galaxies and as the central engines of active galactic nuclei. They also present a new tool to explore gravity in its most extreme limit and on a mass scale that was so far not accessible.© 2019. The American Astronomical Society, The authors of this Letter thank the following organizations and programs: the Academy of Finland (projects 274477, 284495, 312496); the Advanced European Network of E-infrastructures for Astronomy with the SKA (AENEAS) project, supported by the European Commission Framework Programme Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation action under grant agreement 731016; the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung; the Black Hole Initiative at Harvard University, through a grant (60477) from the John Templeton Foundation; the China Scholarship Council; Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (CONICYT, Chile, via PIA ACT172033, Fondecyt 1171506, BASAL AFB170002, ALMA-conicyt 31140007); Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT, Mexico, projects 104497, 275201, 279006, 281692); the Delaney Family via the Delaney Family John A. Wheeler Chair at Perimeter Institute; Dirección General de Asuntos del Personal Académico-Universidad Nacional 9 The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 875:L1 (17pp), 2019 April 10 The EHT Collaboration et al. Autónoma de México (DGAPA-UNAM, project IN112417); the European Research Council (ERC) Synergy Grant “BlackHoleCam: Imaging the Event Horizon of Black Holes” (grant 610058); the Generalitat Valenciana postdoctoral grant APOSTD/2018/177; the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (grants GBMF-3561, GBMF-5278); the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) sezione di Napoli, iniziative specifiche TEONGRAV; the International Max Planck Research School for Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Universities of Bonn and Cologne; the Jansky Fellowship program of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO); the Japanese Government (Monbukagakusho: MEXT) Scholarship; the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Grant-in-Aid for JSPS Research Fellowship (JP17J08829); JSPS Overseas Research Fellowships; the Key Research Program of Frontier Sciences, Chinese, Academy of Sciences (CAS, grants QYZDJ-SSW-SLH057, QYZDJ-SSW-SYS008); the Leverhulme Trust Early Career Research Fellowship; the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (MPG); the Max Planck Partner Group of the MPG and the CAS; the MEXT/JSPS KAKENHI (grants 18KK0090, JP18K13594, JP18K03656, JP18H03721, 18K03709, 18H01245, 25120007); the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI) Funds; the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) of Taiwan (105-2112-M-001-025-MY3, 106-2112-M001-011, 106-2119-M-001-027, 107-2119-M-001-017, 107- 2119-M-001-020, and 107-2119-M-110-005); the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA, Fermi Guest Investigator grant 80NSSC17K0649); the National Institute of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan; the National Key Research and Development Program of China (grant 2016YFA0400704, 2016YFA0400702); the National Science Foundation (NSF, grants AST-0096454, AST-0352953, AST-0521233, AST0705062, AST-0905844, AST-0922984, AST-1126433, AST1140030, DGE-1144085, AST-1207704, AST-1207730, AST1207752, MRI-1228509, OPP-1248097, AST-1310896, AST1312651, AST-1337663, AST-1440254, AST-1555365, AST1715061, AST-1615796, AST-1614868, AST-1716327, OISE1743747, AST-1816420); the Natural Science Foundation of China (grants 11573051, 11633006, 11650110427, 10625314, 11721303, 11725312, 11873028, 11873073, U1531245, 11473010); the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC, including a Discovery Grant and the NSERC Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarships-Doctoral Program); the National Youth Thousand Talents Program of China; the National Research Foundation of Korea (grant 2015-R1D1A1A01056807, the Global PhD Fellowship Grant: NRF-2015H1A2A1033752, and the Korea Research Fellowship Program: NRF-2015H1D3A1066561); the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) VICI award (grant 639.043.513) and Spinoza Prize (SPI 78-409); the New Scientific Frontiers with Precision, Radio Interferometry Fellowship awarded by the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO), which is a facility of the National Research Foundation (NRF), an agency of the Department of Science and Technology (DST) of South Africa; the Onsala Space Observatory (OSO) national infrastructure, for the provisioning of its facilities/observational support (OSO receives funding through the Swedish Research Council under grant 2017-00648); the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (research at Perimeter Institute is supported by the Government of Canada through the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada and by the Province of Ontario through the Ministry of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade); the Russian Science Foundation (grant 17-12-01029); the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (grants AYA2015-63939-C2-1-P, AYA2016-80889-P); the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the “Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa” award for the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (SEV-2017-0709); the Toray Science Foundation; the US Department of Energy (USDOE) through the Los Alamos National Laboratory (operated by Triad National Security, LLC, for the National Nuclear Security Administration of the USDOE (Contract 89233218CNA000001)); the Italian Ministero dell’Istruzione Università e Ricerca through the grant Progetti Premiali 2012-iALMA (CUP C52I13000140001); the European Unionʼs Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 730562 RadioNet; ALMA North America Development Fund; Chandra TM6-17006X

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is a very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) array that comprises millimeter- and submillimeter-wavelength telescopes separated by distances comparable to the diameter of the Earth. At a nominal operating wavelength of ~1.3 mm, EHT angular resolution (λ/D) is ~25 μas, which is sufficient to resolve nearby supermassive black hole candidates on spatial and temporal scales that correspond to their event horizons. With this capability, the EHT scientific goals are to probe general relativistic effects in the strong-field regime and to study accretion and relativistic jet formation near the black hole boundary. In this Letter we describe the system design of the EHT, detail the technology and instrumentation that enable observations, and provide measures of its performance. Meeting the EHT science objectives has required several key developments that have facilitated the robust extension of the VLBI technique to EHT observing wavelengths and the production of instrumentation that can be deployed on a heterogeneous array of existing telescopes and facilities. To meet sensitivity requirements, high-bandwidth digital systems were developed that process data at rates of 64 gigabit s−1, exceeding those of currently operating cm-wavelength VLBI arrays by more than an order of magnitude. Associated improvements include the development of phasing systems at array facilities, new receiver installation at several sites, and the deployment of hydrogen maser frequency standards to ensure coherent data capture across the array. These efforts led to the coordination and execution of the first Global EHT observations in 2017 April, and to event-horizon-scale imaging of the supermassive black hole candidate in M87.© 2019. The American Astronomical Society, The authors of this Letter thank the following organizations and programs: the Academy of Finland (projects 274477, 284495, 312496); the Advanced European Network of E-infrastructures for Astronomy with the SKA (AENEAS) project, supported by the European Commission Framework Programme Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation action under grant agreement 731016; the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung; the Black Hole Initiative at Harvard University, through a grant (60477) from the John Templeton Foundation; the China Scholarship Council; Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (CONICYT, Chile, via PIA ACT172033, Fondecyt 1171506, BASAL AFB170002, ALMA-conicyt 31140007); Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT, Mexico, projects 104497, 275201, 279006, 281692); the Delaney Family via the Delaney Family John A. Wheeler Chair at Perimeter Institute; Dirección General de Asuntos del Personal Académico-Universidad Nacional 9 The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 875:L1 (17pp), 2019 April 10 The EHT Collaboration et al. Autónoma de México (DGAPA-UNAM, project IN112417); the European Research Council (ERC) Synergy Grant “BlackHoleCam: Imaging the Event Horizon of Black Holes” (grant 610058); the Generalitat Valenciana postdoctoral grant APOSTD/2018/177; the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (grants GBMF-3561, GBMF-5278); the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) sezione di Napoli, iniziative specifiche TEONGRAV; the International Max Planck Research School for Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Universities of Bonn and Cologne; the Jansky Fellowship program of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO); the Japanese Government (Monbukagakusho: MEXT) Scholarship; the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Grant-in-Aid for JSPS Research Fellowship (JP17J08829); JSPS Overseas Research Fellowships; the Key Research Program of Frontier Sciences, Chinese, Academy of Sciences (CAS, grants QYZDJ-SSW-SLH057, QYZDJ-SSW-SYS008); the Leverhulme Trust Early Career Research Fellowship; the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (MPG); the Max Planck Partner Group of the MPG and the CAS; the MEXT/JSPS KAKENHI (grants 18KK0090, JP18K13594, JP18K03656, JP18H03721, 18K03709, 18H01245, 25120007); the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI) Funds; the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) of Taiwan (105-2112-M-001-025-MY3, 106-2112-M001-011, 106-2119-M-001-027, 107-2119-M-001-017, 107- 2119-M-001-020, and 107-2119-M-110-005); the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA, Fermi Guest Investigator grant 80NSSC17K0649); the National Institute of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan; the National Key Research and Development Program of China (grant 2016YFA0400704, 2016YFA0400702); the National Science Foundation (NSF, grants AST-0096454, AST-0352953, AST-0521233, AST0705062, AST-0905844, AST-0922984, AST-1126433, AST1140030, DGE-1144085, AST-1207704, AST-1207730, AST1207752, MRI-1228509, OPP-1248097, AST-1310896, AST1312651, AST-1337663, AST-1440254, AST-1555365, AST1715061, AST-1615796, AST-1614868, AST-1716327, OISE1743747, AST-1816420); the Natural Science Foundation of China (grants 11573051, 11633006, 11650110427, 10625314, 11721303, 11725312, 11873028, 11873073, U1531245, 11473010); the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC, including a Discovery Grant and the NSERC Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarships-Doctoral Program); the National Youth Thousand Talents Program of China; the National Research Foundation of Korea (grant 2015-R1D1A1A01056807, the Global PhD Fellowship Grant: NRF-2015H1A2A1033752, and the Korea Research Fellowship Program: NRF-2015H1D3A1066561); the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) VICI award (grant 639.043.513) and Spinoza Prize (SPI 78-409); the New Scientific Frontiers with Precision, Radio Interferometry Fellowship awarded by the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO), which is a facility of the National Research Foundation (NRF), an agency of the Department of Science and Technology (DST) of South Africa; the Onsala Space Observatory (OSO) national infrastructure, for the provisioning of its facilities/observational support (OSO receives funding through the Swedish Research Council under grant 2017-00648); the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (research at Perimeter Institute is supported by the Government of Canada through the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada and by the Province of Ontario through the Ministry of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade); the Russian Science Foundation (grant 17-12-01029); the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (grants AYA2015-63939-C2-1-P, AYA2016-80889-P); the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the “Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa” award for the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (SEV-2017-0709); the Toray Science Foundation; the US Department of Energy (USDOE) through the Los Alamos National Laboratory (operated by Triad National Security, LLC, for the National Nuclear Security Administration of the USDOE (Contract 89233218CNA000001)); the Italian Ministero dell’Istruzione Università e Ricerca through the grant Progetti Premiali 2012-iALMA (CUP C52I13000140001); the European Unionʼs Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 730562 RadioNet; ALMA North America Development Fund; Chandra TM6-17006X