First polarization study of the M87 jet and active galactic nuclei at submillimeter wavelengths with ALMA

  • Ciriaco Goddi*
  • , Douglas F. Carlos
  • , Geoffrey B. Crew
  • , Lynn D. Matthews
  • , Hugo Messias
  • , Alejandro Mus
  • , Iván Martí-Vidal
  • , Ezequiel Albentosa-Ruíz
  • , Mariafelicia De Laurentis
  • , Elisabetta Liuzzo
  • , Nicola Marchili
  • , Kazi L.J. Rygl
  • , Kazunori Akiyama
  • , Antxon Alberdi
  • , Walter Alef
  • , Juan Carlos Algaba
  • , Richard Anantua
  • , Keiichi Asada
  • , Rebecca Azulay
  • , Uwe Bach
  • Anne Kathrin Baczko, David Ball, Mislav Balokoviä, Bidisha Bandyopadhyay, John Barrett, Michi Bauböck, Bradford A. Benson, Dan Bintley, Lindy Blackburn, Raymond Blundell, Katherine L. Bouman, Geoffrey C. Bower, Michael Bremer, Roger Brissenden, Silke Britzen, Avery E. Broderick, Dominique Broguiere, Thomas Bronzwaer, Sandra Bustamante, John E. Carlstrom, Andrew Chael, Chi Kwan Chan, Dominic O. Chang, Koushik Chatterjee, Shami Chatterjee, Ming Tang Chen, Yongjun Chen, Xiaopeng Cheng, Ilje Cho, Pierre Christian, Nicholas S. Conroy, John E. Conway, Thomas M. Crawford, Alejandro Cruz-Osorio, Yuzhu Cui, Brandon Curd, Rohan Dahale, Jordy Davelaar, Roger Deane, Jessica Dempsey, Gregory Desvignes, Jason Dexter, Vedant Dhruv, Indu K. Dihingia, Sheperd S. Doeleman, Sergio A. Dzib, Ralph P. Eatough, Razieh Emami, Heino Falcke, Joseph Farah, Vincent L. Fish, Edward Fomalont, H. Alyson Ford, Marianna Foschi, Raquel Fraga-Encinas, William T. Freeman, Per Friberg, Christian M. Fromm, Antonio Fuentes, Peter Galison, Charles F. Gammie, Roberto García, Olivier Gentaz, Boris Georgiev, Roman Gold, Arturo I. Gómez-Ruiz, José L. Gómez, Minfeng Gu, Mark Gurwell, Kazuhiro Hada, Daryl Haggard, Ronald Hesper, Dirk Heumann, Luis C. Ho, Paul Ho, Mareki Honma, Chih Wei L. Huang, Lei Huang, David H. Hughes, Shiro Ikeda, C. M. Violette Impellizzeri, Makoto Inoue, Sara Issaoun, David J. James, Buell T. Jannuzi, Michael Janssen, Britton Jeter, Wu Jiang, Alejandra Jiménez-Rosales, Michael D. Johnson, Svetlana Jorstad, Adam C. Jones, Abhishek V. Joshi, Taehyun Jung, Ramesh Karuppusamy, Tomohisa Kawashima, Garrett K. Keating, Mark Kettenis, Dong Jin Kim, Jae Young Kim, Jongsoo Kim, Junhan Kim, Motoki Kino, Jun Yi Koay, Prashant Kocherlakota, Yutaro Kofuji, Shoko Koyama, Carsten Kramer, Joana A. Kramer, Michael Kramer, Thomas P. Krichbaum, Cheng Yu Kuo, Noemi La Bella, Sang Sung Lee, Aviad Levis, Zhiyuan Li, Rocco Lico, Greg Lindahl, Michael Lindqvist, Mikhail Lisakov, Jun Liu, Kuo Liu, Wen Ping Lo, Andrei P. Lobanov, Laurent Loinard, Colin J. Lonsdale, Amy E. Lowitz, Ru Sen Lu, Nicholas R. MacDonald, Jirong Mao, Sera Markoff, Daniel P. Marrone, Alan P. Marscher, Satoki Matsushita, Lia Medeiros, Karl M. Menten, Izumi Mizuno, Yosuke Mizuno, Joshua Montgomery, James M. Moran, Kotaro Moriyama, Monika Moscibrodzka, Wanga Mulaudzi, Cornelia Müller, Hendrik Müller, Gibwa Musoke, Ioannis Myserlis, Hiroshi Nagai, Neil M. Nagar, Dhanya G. Nair, Masanori Nakamura, Gopal Narayanan, Iniyan Natarajan, Antonios Nathanail, Santiago Navarro Fuentes, Joey Neilsen, Chunchong Ni, Michael A. Nowak, Junghwan Oh, Hiroki Okino, Héctor Raúl Olivares Sánchez, Tomoaki Oyama, Feryal Azel, Daniel C.M. Palumbo, Georgios Filippos Paraschos, Jongho Park, Harriet Parsons, Nimesh Patel, Ue Li Pen, Dominic W. Pesce, Vincent Piétu, Aleksandar Popstefanija, Oliver Porth, Ben Prather, Giacomo Principe, Dimitrios Psaltis, Hung Yi Pu, Venkatessh Ramakrishnan, Ramprasad Rao, Mark G. Rawlings, Luciano Rezzolla, Angelo Ricarte, Bart Ripperda, Freek Roelofs, Cristina Romero-Cañizales, Eduardo Ros, Arash Roshanineshat, Helge Rottmann, Alan L. Roy, Ignacio Ruiz, Chet Ruszczyk, Salvador Sánchez, David Sánchez-Argüelles, Miguel Sánchez-Portal, Mahito Sasada, Kaushik Satapathy, Saurabh, Tuomas Savolainen, F. Peter Schloerb, Jonathan Schonfeld, Karl Friedrich Schuster, Lijing Shao, Zhiqiang Shen, Sasikumar Silpa, Des Small, Bong Won Sohn, Jason Soohoo, León D.S. Salas, Kamal Souccar, Joshua S. Stanway, He Sun, Fumie Tazaki, Alexandra J. Tetarenko, Paul Tiede, Remo P.J. Tilanus, Michael Titus, Kenji Toma, Pablo Torne, Teresa Toscano, Efthalia Traianou, Tyler Trent, Sascha Trippe, Matthew Turk, Ilse Van Bemmel, Huib Jan Van Langevelde, Daniel R. Van Rossum, Jesse Vos, Jan Wagner, Derek Ward-Thompson, John Wardle, Jasmin E. Washington, Jonathan Weintroub, Robert Wharton, MacIek Wielgus, Kaj Wiik, Gunther Witzel, Michael F. Wondrak, George N. Wong, Qingwen Wu, Nitika Yadlapalli, Paul Yamaguchi, Aristomenis Yfantis, Doosoo Yoon, André Young, Ziri Younsi, Wei Yu, Feng Yuan, Ye Fei Yuan, J. Anton Zensus, Shuo Zhang, Guang Yao Zhao, Shan Shan Zhao
*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Aims. We investigated the polarization and Faraday properties of Messier 87 (M87) and seven other radio-loud active galactic nuclei (AGNs) at _0.87mm (345 GHz) using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). Our goal was to characterize the linear polarization (LP) fractions, measure Faraday rotation measures (RMs), and examine the magnetic field structures in the emission regions of these AGNs. Methods. We conducted full-polarization observations as part of the ALMA Band 7 very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) commissioning during the April 2021 Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) campaign. We analyzed the LP fractions and RMs to assess the nature of Faraday screens and magnetic fields in the submillimeter emission regions. Results. We find LP fractions between 1% and 17% and RMs exceeding 105 radm-2, which are 1-2 orders of magnitude higher than typically observed at longer wavelengths (λ > 3 mm). This suggests denser Faraday screens or stronger magnetic fields. Additionally, we present the first submillimeter polarized images of the M87 jet and the observed AGNs, revealing RM gradients and sign reversals in the M87 jet indicative of a kiloparsec-scale helical magnetic field structure. Conclusions. Our results provide essential constraints for calibrating, analyzing, and interpreting VLBI data from the EHT at 345 GHz, representing a critical step toward submillimeter VLBI imaging.

Original languageEnglish
Article numberA265
JournalAstronomy and Astrophysics
Volume699
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2025 Jul 1

Keywords

  • Black hole physics
  • Instrumentation: interferometers
  • Instrumentation: polarimeters
  • Magnetic fields
  • Polarization
  • Radiation mechanisms: non-thermal

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Astronomy and Astrophysics
  • Space and Planetary Science

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