Search for: All records

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) has released analyses of reconstructed images of horizon-scale millimeter emission near the supermassive black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy. Parts of the analyses made use of a large library of synthetic black hole images and spectra, which were produced using numerical general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics fluid simulations and polarized ray tracing. In this article, we describe thePATOKApipeline, which was used to generate the Illinois contribution to the EHT simulation library. We begin by describing the relevant accretion systems and radiative processes. We then describe the details of the three numerical codes we use,iharm,ipole, andigrmonty, paying particular attention to differences between the current generation of the codes and the originally published versions. Finally, we provide a brief overview of simulated data as produced byPATOKAand conclude with a discussion of limitations and future directions.