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New views of black holes from computational imaging

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The unique challenges associated with imaging a black hole motivated the development of new computational imaging algorithms. As the Event Horizon Telescope continues to expand, these algorithms will need to evolve to keep pace with the increasingly demanding volume and dimensionality of the data.

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Fig. 1: The image of the black hole M87* at the center of the galaxy M87, as revealed by the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration2,3.
Fig. 2: A schematic view of the EHT data processing pipeline.
Fig. 3: The past, current and future EHT array.

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Acknowledgements

We are sincerely grateful to the editor Fernando Chirigati for the invitation and many suggestions that helped to improve this Comment. We thank K. Bouman, G. Bower, P. Galison, S. Ikeda and M. Janssen for helpful comments. K.A. is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through grants AST-1440254, AST-1614868 and AST-2034306. D.W.P is supported by the NSF through grants AST-1952099, AST-1935980, AST-1828513 and AST-1440254, and by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation through grant GBMF5278. A.C. is supported by Hubble Fellowship grant HST-HF2-51431.001-A awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract NAS5-26555. The Black Hole Initiative at Harvard University is funded by grants from the John Templeton Foundation and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to Harvard University.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Kazunori Akiyama, Andrew Chael, Dominic W. Pesce.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Haystack Observatory, Westford, MA, USA

    Kazunori Akiyama

  2. National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Mitaka, Tokyo, Japan

    Kazunori Akiyama

  3. Black Hole Initiative at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Kazunori Akiyama & Dominic W. Pesce

  4. Princeton Center for Theoretical Science, Jadwin Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Andrew Chael

  5. Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Dominic W. Pesce

Authors
  1. Kazunori Akiyama
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  2. Andrew Chael
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  3. Dominic W. Pesce
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Contributions

The three authors equally contributed to the Comment. Each third of the Comment was drafted by each author, followed by thorough edits by all three authors. K.A. created Figs. 1 and 2; D.W.P created Fig. 3.

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Correspondence to Kazunori Akiyama.

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Akiyama, K., Chael, A. & Pesce, D.W. New views of black holes from computational imaging. Nat Comput Sci 1, 300–303 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43588-021-00078-z

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