Evaluation of South African Candidate Sites for an Expanded Event Horizon Telescope

Abstract

Global expansion of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) will see the strategic addition of antennas at new geographical locations, transforming the sensitivity and imaging fidelity of the $\lambda \sim 1\,$mm EHT array. A possible South African EHT station would leverage a strong geographical advantage, local infrastructure, and radio astronomy expertise, and have strong synergies with the Africa Millimetre Telescope in Namibia. We assessed three South African candidate millimetre sites using climatological simulations and found at least two promising sites. These sites are comparable to some existing EHT stations during the typical April EHT observing window and outperform them during most of the year, especially the southern hemisphere winter. Interferometric simulations of Africa-enhanced EHT arrays under the simulated atmospheric conditions demonstrate the improved array performance. In typical weather, the number of reliable visibility detections increased considerably, especially at $(u, v)$-distances corresponding to the angular sizes of the Sagittarius A$^*$ and Messier 87$^*$ black hole shadow diameters ($\sim40\,\mathrm{\mu}$as to $50\,\mathrm{\mu}$as). The simulation results underscore the sizable, positive impact of a strategically placed South African EHT station on ngEHT objectives and the resulting black hole science.