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Caption: Figure 3.
The combination of unresolved (m net) and EHT-resolved (〈∣m∣〉) linear polarization measurements (at 20 μas resolution) constrains the degree of order in the underlying polarization image. In this schematic example, a polarized m-ring has a fixed net polarization, m net ≡ 0.07 (denoted with the black dashed line), together with a single strongly polarized mode at higher order, ℓ, that controls the degree of disorder. For small values of ℓ, the resulting image is too ordered, with 〈∣m∣〉 exceeding our observed value for Sgr A* (denoted with the upper yellow band). For large values of m, the resulting image is too disordered, with beam depolarization eliminating the highly polarized image structure. In this example, the fields must be substantially ordered to be consistent with our observations of Sgr A*, with polarized structure that is coherent on scales of the ℓ ≈ 4 mode, corresponding to angular scales of θ ≈ 4θ g ≈ 20 μas.
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© 2024. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.
