Relativistic Radiative Transfer Calculations with an Eye Toward the Event Horizon Telescope
Daniel Dandurand, University of California, Berkeley
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration will make use of Very Long Baseline Interferometry to give us an unprecedented glimpse into the physics of black holes. The upcoming EHT observations have stimulated interest in modeling the dynamics of one of the primary EHT targets, Sagittarius A*, a compact radio source that is believed to be an accreting supermassive black hole. Here we present some of the major results of such simulations, with an emphasis on the relativistic radiative transfer calculations that are required to extract concrete observational predictions from the accretion simulation results. We discuss in particular the calculated effect of strong space-time curvature on photon polarization and its implications for EHT observations.
Abstract Author(s): D. Dandurand, J. Dexter, E. Quataert