AST 98-023057 William Junor Dr. Junor is undertaking a two year program to observe and analyze the central regions of the galaxy M87. He is using polarimetry from the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), and 18cm observations from the Very Long Baseline Interferometer (VLBI) The VLBI programs will link to the VLBI satellite and VSOP/HALCA. This VLBI program is part of VSOP/HALCA's Key Science Program. M87 is the nearest active galaxy with a bright core. Current theories place a supermassive black hole with an orbiting accreting disk at the center of M87. There is a collimated (over five orders of magnitude of scale) flow outward from this region. Dr. Junor is tracking the morphological and brightness evolution of the jet. HST observations have indicated that the core of this galaxy may contain a supermassive black hole of 2 x 109 solar masses. These radio observations complement the on-going program of HST optical monitoring. M87 is one of the fewer than ten known to have optical synchrotron emission. The program with VLBI polarimetry of the core and the jet is the first such program on this key source at this very high resolution, and it will investigate both the role of the magnetic field in collimating the jet and the magnetic field topology of the jet. ***
