Comparison of Polarized Radiative Transfer Codes Used by the EHT Collaboration

Prather, B.S.; Dexter, J.; Moscibrodzka, M.; Pu, H.-Y.; Bronzwaer, T.; Davelaar, J.; Younsi, Z.; Gammie, C.F.; Gold, R.; Wong, G.N.; Akiyama, K.; Alberdi, A.; Alef, W.; Algaba, J.C.; Anantua, R.; 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.; Broderick, A.E.; Broguiere, D.; Bustamante, S.; Byun, D.-Y.; Carlstrom, J.E.; Ceccobello, C.; Chael, A.; Chan, C.-K.; Chang, D.O.; Chatterjee, K.; Chatterjee, S.; Chen, M.-T.; Chen, Y.; Cheng, X.; Cho, I.; Christian, P.; Conroy, N.S.; Conway, J.E.; Cordes, J.M.; Crawford, T.M.; Crew, G.B.; Cruz-Osorio, A.; Cui, Y.; de Laurentis, M.; Deane, R.; Dempsey, J.; Desvignes, G.; Dhruv, V.; Doeleman, S.S.; Dougal, S.; Dzib, S.A.; Eatough, R.P.; Emami, R.; Falcke, H.; Farah, J.; Fish, V.L.; Fomalont, E.; Ford, H.A.; Fraga-Encinas, R.; Freeman, W.T.; Friberg, P.; Fromm, C.M.; Fuentes, A.; Galison, P.; García, R.; Gentaz, O.; Georgiev, B.; Goddi, C.; Gómez-Ruiz, A.I.; Gómez, J.L.; Gu, M.; Gurwell, M.; Hada, K.; Haggard, D.; Haworth, K.; Hecht, M.H.; Hesper, R.; Heumann, D.; Ho, L.C.; Ho, P.; Honma, M.; Huang, C.-W.L.; Huang, L.; Hughes, D.H.; Ikeda, S.; Impellizzeri, C.M.V.; Inoue, M.; Issaoun, S.; James, D.J.; Jannuzi, B.T.; Janssen, M.; Jeter, B.; Jiang, W.; Jiménez-Rosales, A.; Johnson, M.D.; Jorstad, S.; Joshi, A.V.; 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.; Koyama, S.; Kramer, C.; Kramer, M.; Krichbaum, T.P.; Kuo, C.-Y.; la Bella, N.; Lauer, T.R.; Lee, D.; Lee, S.-S.; Leung, P.K.; Levis, A.; Li, Z.; Lico, R.; Lindahl, G.; Lindqvist, M.; Lisakov, M.; Liu, J.; Liu, K.; Liuzzo, E.; Lo, W.-P.; Lobanov, A.P.; Loinard, L.; Lonsdale, C.J.; Lu, R.-S.; Macdonald, N.R.; Mao, J.; Marchili, N.; Markoff, S.; Marrone, D.P.; Marscher, A.P.; Martí-Vidal, I.; Matsushita, S.; Matthews, L.D.; Medeiros, L.; Menten, K.M.; Michalik, D.; Mizuno, I.; Mizuno, Y.; Moran, J.M.; Moriyama, K.; Müller, C.; Mus, A.; Musoke, G.; Myserlis, I.; Nadolski, A.; Nagai, H.; Nagar, N.M.; Nakamura, M.; Narayan, R.; Narayanan, G.; Natarajan, I.; Nathanail, A.; Fuentes, S.N.; Neilsen, J.; Neri, R.; Ni, C.; Noutsos, A.; Nowak, M.A.; Oh, J.; Okino, H.; Olivares, H.; Ortiz-León, G.N.; Oyama, T.; Özel, F.; Palumbo, D.C.M.; Paraschos, G.F.; Park, J.; Parsons, H.; Patel, N.; Pen, U.-L.; Pesce, D.W.; Piétu, V.; Plambeck, R.; Popstefanija, A.; Porth, O.; Pötzl, F.M.; Preciado-López, J.A.; Psaltis, D.; Ramakrishnan, V.; Rao, R.; Rawlings, M.G.; Raymond, A.W.; Rezzolla, L.; Ricarte, A.; 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, Z.; Small, D.; Sohn, B.W.; Soohoo, J.; Souccar, K.; Sun, H.; Tazaki, F.; Tetarenko, A.J.; Tiede, P.; Tilanus, R.P.J.; Titus, M.; Torne, P.; Traianou, E.; Trent, T.; Trippe, S.; Turk, M.; van Bemmel, I.; van Langevelde, H.J.; van Rossum, D.R.; Vos, J.; Wagner, J.; Ward-Thompson, D.; Wardle, J.; Weintroub, J.; Wex, N.; Wharton, R.; Wielgus, M.; Wiik, K.; Witzel, G.; Wondrak, M.F.; Wu, Q.; Yamaguchi, P.; Yfantis, A.; Yoon, D.; Young, A.; Young, K.; Yu, W.; Yuan, F.; Yuan, Y.-F.; Zensus, J.A.; Zhang, S.; Zhao, G.-Y.; Zhao, S.-S.

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Prather, B.S.
Dexter, J.

Moscibrodzka, M.
Pu, H.-Y.
Bronzwaer, T.
Davelaar, J.
Younsi, Z.
Gammie, C.F.
Gold, R.
Wong, G.N.

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Affiliation

Steward Observatory and Department of Astronomy, University of Arizona
Data Science Institute, University of Arizona
Program in Applied Mathematics, University of Arizona

Issue Date

2023-06-08

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Institute of Physics

Citation

Ben S. Prather et al 2023 ApJ 950 35

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Astrophysical Journal

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This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at repository@u.library.arizona.edu.

Abstract

Interpretation of resolved polarized images of black holes by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) requires predictions of the polarized emission observable by an Earth-based instrument for a particular model of the black hole accretion system. Such predictions are generated by general relativistic radiative transfer (GRRT) codes, which integrate the equations of polarized radiative transfer in curved spacetime. A selection of ray-tracing GRRT codes used within the EHT Collaboration is evaluated for accuracy and consistency in producing a selection of test images, demonstrating that the various methods and implementations of radiative transfer calculations are highly consistent. When imaging an analytic accretion model, we find that all codes produce images similar within a pixel-wise normalized mean squared error (NMSE) of 0.012 in the worst case. When imaging a snapshot from a cell-based magnetohydrodynamic simulation, we find all test images to be similar within NMSEs of 0.02, 0.04, 0.04, and 0.12 in Stokes I, Q, U, and V, respectively. We additionally find the values of several image metrics relevant to published EHT results to be in agreement to much better precision than measurement uncertainties. © 2023. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.

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Open access journal

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0004-637X

DOI

10.3847/1538-4357/acc586

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Final Published Version

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UA Faculty Publications

© 2023. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society. Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence.

Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as © 2023. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society. Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence.