Project Description

on VLBI group at ASIAA

With the addition of new staff members, a new effort has been launched to perform frontier Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) studies. VLBI has been dedicated in pursuit of high angular resolution. Our group, collabrating with international partners, is conducting the exciting projects, which will achieve the resolution of tens of micro arcseconds: Submillimeter VLBI. By direct imaging toward the super massive black holes (SMBHs) at center of the Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) with this extremely high angular resolution, we will investigate the physics at ultimate state under the relativity. Tentative goals of this group would be to (1) image the shadow of SMBH itself and (2) image the inner most part of the jet and accretion disk. The former would be a direct proof of the existence of SMBH, and essential to determine the mass and spin parameter of SMBH. The latter would be important to investigate the launching mechanisms of the ultra-relativistic jet.