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The broadening of atomic emission lines by high-velocity motion of gas near accreting supermassive black holes is an observational hallmark of quasars 1 . Observations of broad emission lines could potentially constrain the mechanism for transporting gas inwards through accretion disks or outwards through winds 2 . The size of regions for which broad emission lines are observed (broad-line regions) has been estimated by measuring the delay in light travel time between the variable brightness of the accretion disk  continuum and the emission lines 3 —a method known as reverberation mapping. In some models the emission lines arise from a continuous outflow 4 , whereas in others they arise from orbiting gas clouds 5 . Directly imaging such regions has not hitherto been possible because of their small angular size (less than 10 −4 arcseconds 3 , 6 ). Here we report a spatial offset (with a spatial resolution of 10 −5 arcseconds, or about 0.03 parsecs for a distance of 550 million parsecs) between the red and blue photo-centres of the broad Paschen-α line of the quasar 3C 273 perpendicular to the direction of its radio jet. This spatial offset corresponds to a gradient in the velocity of the gas and thus implies that the gas is orbiting the central supermassive black hole. The data are well fitted by a broad-line-region model of a thick disk of gravitationally bound material orbiting a black hole of 3 × 10 8 solar masses. We infer a disk radius of 150 light days; a radius of 100–400 light days was found previously using reverberation mapping 7 – 9 . The rotation axis of the disk aligns in inclination and position angle with the radio jet. Our results support the methods that are often used to estimate the masses of accreting supermassive black holes and to study their evolution over cosmic time. High-angular-resolution observations of the quasar 3C 273 reveal that it has a relatively small but thick disk, viewed nearly face-on, in which material is orbiting the central supermassive black hole.

Tight relationships exist in the local Universe between the central stellar properties of galaxies and the mass of their supermassive black hole (SMBH) 1 – 3 . These suggest that galaxies and black holes co-evolve, with the main regulation mechanism being energetic feedback from accretion onto the black hole during its quasar phase 4 – 6 . A crucial question is how the relationship between black holes and galaxies evolves with time; a key epoch to examine this relationship is at the peaks of star formation and black hole growth 8–12 billion years ago (redshifts 1–3) 7 . Here we report a dynamical measurement of the mass of the black hole in a luminous quasar at a redshift of 2, with a look back in time of 11 billion years, by spatially resolving the broad-line region (BLR). We detect a 40-μas (0.31-pc) spatial offset between the red and blue photocentres of the Hα line that traces the velocity gradient of a rotating BLR. The flux and differential phase spectra are well reproduced by a thick, moderately inclined disk of gas clouds within the sphere of influence of a central black hole with a mass of 3.2 × 10 8  solar masses. Molecular gas data reveal a dynamical mass for the host galaxy of 6 × 10 11  solar masses, which indicates an undermassive black hole accreting at a super-Eddington rate. This suggests a host galaxy that grew faster than the SMBH, indicating a delay between galaxy and black hole formation for some systems. Using the GRAVITY+ instrument, dynamical measurement of the black hole mass in a quasar at a redshift of 2.3 (11 billion years ago) shows how the relationship between galaxies and black holes evolves with time.

We describe a new type of coronagraph, based on the principle of a phase mask as proposed by Roddier and Roddier a few years ago but using an original mask design found by one of us (D. R.), a four‐quadrant binary phase mask (0, π) covering the full field of view at the focal plane. The mutually destructive interferences of the coherent light from the main source produce a very efficient nulling. The computed rejection rate of this coronagraph appears to be very high since, when perfectly aligned and phase‐error free, it could in principle reduce the total amount of light from the bright source by a factor of 108, corresponding to a gain of 20 mag in brightness at the location of the first Airy ring, relative to the Airy peak. In the real world the gain is of course reduced by a strong factor, but nulling is still performing quite well, provided that the perturbation of the phase, for instance, due to the Earth’s atmosphere, is efficiently corrected by adaptive optics. We show from simulations that a detection at a contrast of 10 mag between a star and a faint companion is achievable in excellent conditions, while 8 mag appears routinely feasible. This coronagraph appears less sensitive to atmospheric turbulence and has a larger dynamic range than other recently proposed nulling techniques: the phase‐mask coronagraph (by Roddier and Roddier) or the Achromatic Interfero‐Coronagraph (by Gay and Rabbia). We present the principle of the four‐quadrant coronagraph and results of a first series of simulations. We compare those results with theoretical performances of other devices. We briefly analyze the different limitations in space or ground‐based observations, as well as the issue of manufacturing the device. We also discuss several ways to improve the detection of a faint companion around a bright object. We conclude that, with respect to previous techniques, an instrument equipped with this coronagraph should have better performance and even enable the imaging of extrasolar giant planets at a young stage, when coupled with additional cleaning techniques.

The cool gas in the central parsec of the Galaxy is organized in the surrounding circumnuclear disk, made of neutral gas, and the internal minispiral, composed of dust and ionized gas. In order to study the transition between them we have investigated the presence of H2 neutral gas in this area, through NIR spectro-imaging data observed with SPIFFI. To preserve the spatial resolution we implemented a new method consisting of a regularized 3D fit. We concentrated on the supposedly fully ionized central cavity and the very inner edge of the CND. H2 is detected everywhere: at the boundary of the CND and in the central cavity, where it seems to split in two components, one in the background of the minispiral and one inside the Northern arm.

We present the adaptive optics assisted, near-infrared VLTI instrument GRAVITY for precision narrow-angle astrometry and interferometric phase referenced imaging of faint objects. With its two fibers per telescope beam, its internal wavefront sensors and fringe tracker, and a novel metrology concept, GRAVITY will not only push the sensitivity far beyond what is offered today, but will also advance the astrometric accuracy for UTs to 10 μas. GRAVITY is designed to work with four telescopes, thus providing phase referenced imaging and astrometry for 6 baselines simultaneously. Its unique capabilities and sensitivity will open a new window for the observation of a wide range of objects, and — amongst others — will allow the study of motion within a few times the event horizon size of the Galactic Center black hole.

Stars form by accreting material from their surrounding disks. There is a consensus that matter flowing through the disk is channelled onto the stellar surface by the stellar magnetic field. This is thought to be strong enough to truncate the disk close to the corotation radius, at which the disk rotates at the same rate as the star. Spectro-interferometric studies in young stellar objects show that hydrogen emission (a well known tracer of accretion activity) mostly comes from a region a few milliarcseconds across, usually located within the dust sublimation radius 1 – 3 . The origin of the hydrogen emission could be the stellar magnetosphere, a rotating wind or a disk. In the case of intermediate-mass Herbig AeBe stars, the fact that Brackett γ (Brγ) emission is spatially resolved rules out the possibility that most of the emission comes from the magnetosphere 4 – 6 because the weak magnetic fields (some tenths of a gauss) detected in these sources 7 , 8 result in very compact magnetospheres. In the case of T Tauri sources, their larger magnetospheres should make them easier to resolve. The small angular size of the magnetosphere (a few tenths of a milliarcsecond), however, along with the presence of winds 9 , 10 make the interpretation of the observations challenging. Here we report optical long-baseline interferometric observations that spatially resolve the inner disk of the T Tauri star TW Hydrae. We find that the near-infrared hydrogen emission comes from a region approximately 3.5 stellar radii across. This region is within the continuum dusty disk emitting region (7 stellar radii across) and also within the corotation radius, which is twice as big. This indicates that the hydrogen emission originates in the accretion columns (funnel flows of matter accreting onto the star), as expected in magnetospheric accretion models, rather than in a wind emitted at much larger distance (more than one astronomical unit). The size of the inner disk of the T Tauri star TW Hydrae is determined using optical long-baseline interferometric observations, indicating that hydrogen emission comes from a region approximately 3.5 stellar radii across.

Since about an half-decade, adaptive optics (AO) on 8-10m class telescopes has been a key instrumentation for our understanding of Sgr A*. In this article, we frst remind the performances of the AO-fed NACO/VLT, with its infrared wavefront sensor, comparing them to other systems worldwide. We then present results obtained in imaging with NACO, on the dust clouds close to Sgr A*, more particularly on the closest one, Sgr A*-f, whose emission could result from a jet from Sgr A*. We fhally describe the spectroscopic observations of these dust clouds, performed very recently, using the low resolution prism mode of NACO.

Three‐dimensional spectroscopy has the advantage of providing (quasi‐) simultaneously both spatial and spectral information. Coupled to adaptive optics, it conjugates spectroscopic power with high angular resolution. GriF offers these capabilities in the near‐infrared. As a new observing mode of KIR, the camera behind PUEO, the Canada‐France‐Hawaii Telescope adaptive optics bonnette, it provides images at the diffraction limit of the telescope in theKband. Spectroscopy at a resolution of 2000 is provided by a Fabry‐Pérot interferometer coupled with a grism, cooled to limit the background. This setup offers a large multiplex gain by observing simultaneously up to five monochromatic images. This article first describes the instrument and the calibration procedures. Next, we demonstrate GriF performances from its first observations, obtained on the Orion molecular cloud OMC‐1.

We use PIONIER data from the ESO archive and GRAVITY data that were obtained in June 2017 with the four 8m telescopes. We use a parametric disk model and the 3D radiative transfer code MCFOST to reproduce the Spectral Energy Distribution and match the interferometric observations. To match the SED , our model requires a stellar luminosity of 2.5 Lsun, higher than any previously determined values. Such a high value is needed to accommodate the circumstellar extinction caused by the highly inclined disk, which has been neglected in previous studies. While using an effective temperature of 4800 K determined through high-resolution spectroscopy, we derive a stellar radius of 2.29 Rsun. These revised fundamental parameters, when combined with the mass estimates available , lead to an age of 0.5-2.0 Ma for RY Lup, in better agreement with the age of the Lupus association than previous determinations. Our disk model nicely reproduces the interferometric GRAVITY data and is in good agreement with the PIONIER ones. We derive an inner rim location at 0.12~au from the central star. This model corresponds to an inclination of the inner disk of 50deg, which is in mild tension with previous determinations of a more inclined outer disk from SPHERE (70 deg in NIR) and ALMA(67 \\(\\pm\\)5 deg) images, but consistent with the inclination determination from the ALMA CO spectra (55\\(\\pm\\)5deg). Increasing the inclination of the inner disk to 70 deg leads to a higher line-of-sight extinction and therefore requires a higher stellar luminosity of 4.65 Lsun to match the observed flux levels. This luminosity would translate to a stellar radius of 3.13~Rsun, leading to an age of 2-3~Ma, and a stellar mass of about 2 Msun, in disagreement with the observed dynamical mass estimate of 1.3-1.5 Msun. Critically, this high-inclination inner disk model also fails to reproduce the visibilities observed with GRAVITY.

The Galactic Center black hole Sagittarius A* is a variable NIR source that exhibits bright flux excursions called flares. The low-flux density turnover of the flux distribution is below the sensitivity of current single-aperture telescopes. We use the unprecedented resolution of the GRAVITY instrument at the VLTI. Our light curves are unconfused, overcoming the confusion limit of previous photometric studies. We analyze the light curves using standard statistical methods and obtain the flux distribution. We find that the flux distribution of SgrA* turns over at a median flux density of (1.1\\pm0.3)mJy. We measure the percentiles of the flux distribution and use them to constrain the NIR K-band SED. Furthermore, we find that the flux distribution is intrinsically right-skewed to higher flux density in log space. Flux densities below 0.1mJy are hardly ever observed. In consequence, a single powerlaw or lognormal distribution does not suffice to describe the observed flux distribution in its entirety. However, if one takes into account a power law component at high flux densities, a lognormal distribution can describe the lower end of the observed flux distribution. We confirm the RMS-flux relation for Sgr~A* and find it to be linear for all flux densities in our observation. We conclude that Sgr~A* has two states: the bulk of the emission is generated in a lognormal process with a well-defined median flux density and this quiescent emission is supplemented by sporadic flares that create the observed power law extension of the flux distribution.