Cited by 40Astrophysical Phenomena and ObservationsPulsars and Gravitational Waves ResearchAstrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena

A Universal Power-law Prescription for Variability from Synthetic Images of Black Hole Accretion Flows

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Georgiev, Boris, Pesce, Dominic W., Broderick, Avery E., Wong, George N., Dhruv, Vedant, Wielgus, Maciek, Gammie, Charles F., Chan, Chi-kwan +261 more·2022·The Astrophysical Journal Letters

Abstract

We present a framework for characterizing the spatiotemporal power spectrum of the variability expected from the horizon-scale emission structure around supermassive black holes, and we apply this framework to a library of general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (GRMHD) simulations and associated general relativistic ray-traced images relevant for Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) observations of Sgr A*. We find that the variability power spectrum is generically a red-noise process in both the temporal and spatial dimensions, with the peak in power occurring on the longest timescales and largest spatial scales. When both the time-averaged source structure and the spatially integrated light-curve variability are removed, the residual power spectrum exhibits a universal broken power-law behavior. On small spatial frequencies, the residual power spectrum rises as the square of the spatial frequency and is proportional to the variance in the centroid of emission. Beyond some peak in variability power, the residual power spectrum falls as that of the time-averaged source structure, which is similar across simulations; this behavior can be naturally explained if the variability arises from a multiplicative random field that has a steeper high-frequency power-law index than that of the time-averaged source structure. We briefly explore the ability of power spectral variability studies to constrain physical parameters relevant for the GRMHD simulations, which can be scaled to provide predictions for black holes in a range of systems in the optically thin regime. We present specific expectations for the behavior of the M87* and Sgr A* accretion flows as observed by the EHT.

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  • The variability behavior is consistent with theoretical expectations from GRMHD simulations and empirical expectations from the Sgr A* light curve, both of which imply that the variable elements of Sgr A* emission should be uncorrelated beyond a timescale of a few hours.

    “Furthermore, the variability behavior is consistent with theoretical expectations from GRMHD simulations and empirical expectations from the Sgr A * light curve, both of which imply that the variable elements of the Sgr A * emission should be uncorrelated beyond a timescale of a few hours”

    From First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope Results. IV. Variability, Morphology, and Black Hole Mass (2022) · cites this paper as Georgiev et al. 2022

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  • After several hours, the variable components of the image structure in Sgr A* are expected to be uncorrelated.

    “After several hours, the variable components of the image structure in Sgr A * are expected to be uncorrelated”

    From First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope Results. IV. Variability, Morphology, and Black Hole Mass (2022) · cites this paper as Georgiev et al. 2022

    Section 2.1 (page unavailable) says Sgr A* is expected to vary over an observing period of several hours. Section 3.1 says correlations weaken as temporal separation increases, but does not say the variable image structure becomes uncorrelated after several hours. The Summary and Conclusions further says the relevant breaking timescale depends on spatial scale and exceeds roughly 10³ GM/c³ on short baselines. (LLM, conf=0.85)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • Source variability is theoretically expected to arise on a broad range of timescales and is explicitly seen in GRMHD simulations on timescales as short as minutes.

    “Source variability is theoretically expected to arise on a broad range of timescales, and it is explicitly seen in GRMHD simulations on timescales as short as minutes”
  • From GRMHD simulations, the expected noise is well approximated by a broken power law along any radial direction.

    “From GRMHD simulations, the expected noise is well approximated by a broken power law”
  • GRMHD simulations are universally described by a 'red-red' power spectrum, with the largest fluctuations in emission occurring on the longest timescales and the largest spatial scales.

    “GRMHD simulations are universally described by a ' red -red ' power spectrum, with the largest fl uctuations in the emission occurring on the longest timescales and the largest spatial scales”

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  1. Most, E. R., Noronha, J., & Philippov, A. A. 2021, arXiv:2111.05752 · arXiv

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Authors
Georgiev, B., Pesce, D. W., Broderick, A. E., Wong, G. N., Dhruv, V., Wielgus, M., Gammie, C. F., Chan, C.-K., Chatterjee, K., Emami, R., Mizuno, Y., Gold, R., Fromm, C. M., Ricarte, A., Yoon, D., Joshi, A. V., Prather, B., Cruz-Osorio, A., Johnson, M. D., Porth, O., Olivares, H., Younsi, Z., Rezzolla, L., Vos, J., Qiu, R., Nathanail, A., Narayan, R., Chael, A., Anantua, R., Moscibrodzka, M., Akiyama, K., Alberdi, A., Alef, W., Algaba, J. C., Asada, K., Azulay, R., Bach, U., Baczko, A.-K., Ball, D., Baloković, M., Barrett, J., Bauböck, M., Benson, B. A., Bintley, D., Blackburn, L., Blundell, R., Bouman, K. L., Bower, G. C., Boyce, H., Bremer, M., Brinkerink, C. D., Brissenden, R., Britzen, S., Broguiere, D., Bronzwaer, T., Bustamante, S., Byun, D.-Y., Carlstrom, J. E., Ceccobello, C., Chatterjee, S., Chen, M.-T., Chen 陈, Y. 永. 军., Cheng, X., Cho, I., Christian, P., Conroy, N. S., Conway, J. E., Cordes, J. M., Crawford, T. M., Crew, G. B., Cui 崔, Y. 玉. 竹., Davelaar, J., Laurentis, M. D., Deane, R., Dempsey, J., Desvignes, G., Dexter, J., Doeleman, S. S., Dougal, S., Dzib, S. A., Eatough, R. P., Falcke, H., Farah, J., Fish, V. L., Fomalont, E., Ford, H. A., Fraga-Encinas, R., Freeman, W. T., Friberg, P., Fuentes, A., Galison, P., García, R., Gentaz, O., Goddi, C., Gómez-Ruiz, A. I., Gómez, J. L., Gu 顾, M. 敏., Gurwell, M., Hada, K., Haggard, D., Haworth, K., Hecht, M. H., Hesper, R., Heumann, D., Ho 何, L. C. 子., Ho, P., Honma, M., Huang, C.-W. L., Huang 黄, L. 磊., Hughes, D. H., Ikeda, S., Impellizzeri, C. M. V., Inoue, M., Issaoun, S., James, D. J., Jannuzi, B. T., Janssen, M., Jeter, B., Jiang 江, W. 悟., Jiménez-Rosales, A., Jorstad, S., Jung, T., Karami, M., Karuppusamy, R., Kawashima, T., Keating, G. K., Kettenis, M., Kim, D.-J., Kim, J.-Y., Kim, J., Kim, J., Kino, M., Koay, J. Y., Kocherlakota, P., Kofuji, Y., Koch, P. M., Koyama, S., Kramer, C., Kramer, M., Krichbaum, T. P., Kuo, C.-Y., Bella, N. L., Lauer, T. R., Lee, D., Lee, S.-S., Lehner, L., Leung, P. K., Levis, A., Li 李, Z. 志., Lico, R., Lindahl, G., Lindqvist, M., Lisakov, M., Liu 刘, J. 俊., Liu, K., Liuzzo, E., Lo, W.-P., Lobanov, A. P., Loinard, L., Lonsdale, C. J., Lu 路, R.-S. 如., Mao 毛, J. 基., Marchili, N., Markoff, S., Marrone, D. P., Marscher, A. P., Martí-Vidal, I., Matsushita, S., Matthews, L. D., Menten, K. M., Michalik, D., Mizuno, I., Moran, J. M., Moriyama, K., Müller, C., Mus, A., Musoke, G., Myserlis, I., Nadolski, A., Nagai, H., Nagar, N. M., Nakamura, M., Narayanan, G., Natarajan, I., Fuentes, S. N., Neilsen, J., Neri, R., Ni, C., Noutsos, A., Nowak, M. A., Oh, J., Okino, H., Ortiz-León, G. N., Oyama, T., Palumbo, D. C. M., Paraschos, G. F., Park, J., Parsons, H., Patel, N., Pen, U.-L., Piétu, V., Plambeck, R., PopStefanija, A., Pötzl, F. M., Preciado-López, J. A., Pu, H.-Y., Ramakrishnan, V., Rao, R., Rawlings, M. G., Raymond, A. W., Ripperda, B., Roelofs, F., Rogers, A., Ros, E., Romero-Cañizales, C., Roshanineshat, A., Rottmann, H., Roy, A. L., Ruiz, I., Ruszczyk, C., Rygl, K. L. J., Sánchez, S., Sánchez-Argüelles, D., Sánchez-Portal, M., Sasada, M., Satapathy, K., Savolainen, T., Schloerb, F. P., Schonfeld, J., Schuster, K.-F., Shao, L., Shen 沈, Z. 志., Small, D., Sohn, B. W., SooHoo, J., Souccar, K., Sun 孙, H. 赫., Tazaki, F., Tetarenko, A. J., Tiede, P., Tilanus, R. P. J., Titus, M., Torne, P., Traianou, E., Trent, T., Trippe, S., Turk, M., Bemmel, I. V., van Langevelde, H. J., van Rossum, D. R., Wagner, J., Ward-Thompson, D., Wardle, J., Weintroub, J., Wex, N., Wharton, R., Wiik, K., Witzel, G., Wondrak, M. F., Wu 吴, Q. 庆., Yamaguchi, P., Young, A., Young, K., Yuan 袁, F. 峰., Yuan 袁, Y.-F. 业. 飞., Zensus, J. A., Zhang, S., Zhao, G.-Y., & Zhao 赵, S.-S. 杉.
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ORCID
Venue
The Astrophysical Journal Letters
Published
2022-05-01
Volume
930
Issue
2
Pages
L20
ISSN
  • 2041-8205 (ISSN-L)
  • 2041-8213
OpenAlex
W4280640520
Cited by
40
References
88
Citations by year
2026: 3 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 11
FWCI
3.65
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
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Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations
  • Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research
  • Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Nuclear and High Energy Physics › Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena
Keywords
black hole accretion flows, light curve variability, power spectrum, red noise, broken power law, supermassive black holes, Sgr A*, M87, Event Horizon Telescope, general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics

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