Probing anisotropic particle acceleration and limb-brightening in Centaurus A's jet

TL;DR

This study models the jet structure of Centaurus A using advanced simulations, successfully reproducing recent EHT observations and predicting the black hole shadow at THz frequencies.

Contribution

It introduces a Bayesian fitting approach to match GRMHD simulations with EHT data, revealing the role of anisotropic particle distributions in limb-brightening.

Findings

GRMHD simulations with anisotropic particles replicate EHT observations

Black hole mass estimated at 6×10^7 solar masses

Black hole shadow predicted to be observable at ~3 THz

Abstract

Relativistic jets are among the most fascinating objects in the Universe, and recent high-resolution Very Long Baseline Interferometric (VLBI) observations, including the Global mm-VLBI Array and the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), are able to resolve their structure close to their launching site. These observations reveal strongly limb-brightened jet structures for Centaurus A (Cen A), M 87 and 3C 84. Thus, the question arises which physical mechanism can generate the limb-brightened structure, and if this structure is common for jets from low-luminosity active galactic nuclei (LLAGN) seen under large viewing angles. Therefore, as a pilot study, we aim to model the EHT observations of Cen A. We performed a 3D two-temperature general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (GRMHD) simulation of an accreting supermassive black hole (SMBH) and jet launching to study the plasma dynamics and computed the connected emission via general relativistic radiative transfer (GRRT) calculations considering possible anisotropies in the distribution of the radiating particles. In order to adjust our simulations to the EHT observations of Cen A, we carried out a Bayesian fitting in the Fourier plane. We find that GRMHD simulations of magnetically arrested disks (MADs) combined with anisotropically emitting particle distributions along the direction of the magnetic field, parametrized by a value $\eta=0.07$, are able to mimic the recent EHT observations of Cen A. In addition, we extracted a black hole mass of $M_\mathrm{BH} = 6\times10^7 M_\odot$ and a viewing angle of $\vartheta=72\deg$. Our obtained model can reproduce key features of the EHT and Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations in total and polarized emission. Finally, we predict that the black hole shadow in Cen A will be observable at a frequency of $\sim$ 3 THz.