image: On the left is M87*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of the galaxy Messier 87 (M87), 55 million light-years away. On the right is Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the black hole at the centre of our Milky Way. The images, released in 2019 and 2022 respectively, were captured by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a global network of radio telescopes forming a virtual Earth-sized telescope with an incredibly sharp angular resolution. Dr Akiyama developed one of the computational imaging algorithms and co-led the entire imaging team as part of the wider EHT Collaboration efforts to create these first images of black holes. This project “TomoGrav”, hosted by Heriot-Watt University, aims to deliver the first 3D movies of these two black holes by combining pioneering international expertise in black hole imaging with cutting-edge artificial intelligence developed in the UK.
Credit: Credit: EHT Collaboration
Multimillion research to create the first ever 3D movies of black holes will combine pioneering international expertise in black hole imaging with cutting-edge artificial intelligence developed in the UK.
Dr Kazunori Akiyama has been awarded a £4 million Faraday Discovery Fellowship through the programme's Accelerated International Route, to be hosted by Heriot-Watt University. The project, named TomoGrav, brings together the pathbreaking expertise of Dr Kazunori Akiyama and Professor Yves Wiaux.
Dr Akiyama developed one of the computational imaging algorithms and co-led the entire imaging team as part of the wider Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration efforts to create the first images of black holes. Professor Yves Wiaux’s groundbreaking artificial intelligence algorithms are transforming how scientists reconstruct images from incomplete data.
Dr Akiyama and Professor Wiaux are supported by a multidisciplinary team of 10 world-renowned partners from across the world, whose combined expertise will deliver the work.
The funding will see Dr Akiyama move from his present role as a Research Scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Haystack Observatory in the USA to Heriot-Watt University in Scotland as part of the scheme which provides long-term funding to talented mid-career researchers.
Using revolutionary imaging technology, the research is expected to transform understanding of the universe's most extreme environments by revealing how black holes behave and evolve across time.
Black holes are cosmic laboratories where gravity results as a byproduct of the warping of spacetime. Gas swirling around them is heated to extreme temperatures and accelerated to nearly light speed, generating powerful jets of magnetised plasma that are thought to influence the form of the largest scale structures in the universe.
The new research builds on the 2019 and 2022 photographs of two supermassive black holes, M87* and Sagittarius A*, which captivated billions of people worldwide and opened an entirely new scientific area which uses imaging to study gravity and black holes.
The groundbreaking images captured the first glimpses of this new frontier with the 2D doughnut-shaped snapshots revealing only the surface of far richer physics which is now waiting to be explored.
The TomoGrav project will deliver what the team have termed "dynamic gravitational tomography". Instead of flat images, they will create 3D movies showing how plasma flows and evolves around black holes across time, revealing how energy is channelled and how spacetime is bent by extreme gravity.
As well as advancing scientific discovery, the research has applications far beyond astronomy. The same AI techniques will accelerate diagnostic-quality heart and liver scans, reducing time in scanners for patients and lowering healthcare costs. They will also improve Earth monitoring systems, enhancing sea level tracking and climate understanding.
The research will also enable scientists to directly measure black hole spin for the first time. The speed at which a black hole rotates determines how much energy can be extracted from matter falling into it, powering the enormous jets that influence how galaxies form and evolve.
The team will work with the proposed Black Hole Explorer (BHEX), a new mission that aims to discover and measure a black hole's photon ring, capturing light that has orbited a black hole. BHEX also aims to extend the Event Horizon Telescope into space. Precisely mapping these photon rings would provide the most stringent tests yet of Einstein's theory of general relativity in the extreme conditions immediately around a black hole event horizon.
The work will also reveal the mechanism behind jet formation. Matter spiralling into black holes generates magnetic fields that channel energy into enormous jets stretching across thousands of light years. Scientists can observe these jets but not how they form. Time-lapse 3D maps of magnetic fields and plasma will reveal this process in action for the first time.
The project will help design space-based systems capable of resolving hundreds of black holes, revealing how they form, grow and influence cosmic evolution.
Dr Akiyama currently helps operating the science projects of the international organisation The Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration as the EHT Deputy Project Scientist and has served as a research scientist at MIT’s Haystack Observatory. He said: "The first images of black holes were extraordinary steps forward, but they were only fragments of what these astronomical objects are doing. What excites me about joining Heriot-Watt University is the opportunity to work with Professor Wiaux and his research group which has developed some of the world’s most advanced approaches to computational imaging. Our collaboration brings together two expert communities, black hole astronomy and artificial intelligence, and it is at this interface that pathbreaking progress can now be made.
“By combining world-leading telescope capabilities with Heriot-Watt’s strengths in computational imaging, we will be able to follow the dynamics around black holes in a way that has never been possible before. Instead of a single blurred frame, we will see how plasma moves, how magnetic fields evolve and how gravity shapes everything around the event horizon. That shift, from still images to time-resolved structure, will fundamentally change the scientific questions we can ask and change our understanding of the universe."
Professor Yves Wiaux leads the Biomedical and Astronomical Signal Processing Laboratory based in the School of Engineering & Physical Sciences at Heriot-Watt University. He said: “TomoGrav is the encounter and synergy of the two scientific communities of radio astronomy and computational imaging. Dr Akiyama and colleagues bring world-leading expertise in the telescopes and observations that will bring exquisite black hole data, while our methods in AI and computational imaging provide the tools needed to interpret that data. Our collaboration built on complementary strengths positions both Heriot-Watt and the UK to contribute meaningfully to a field that is now taking shape worldwide.
“But progress in astronomy directly supports some of society’s most urgent challenges. Beyond black holes, this project is driven by a shared technical challenge. Imaging the universe from telescope data and imaging the human body with medical scanners both require turning very limited information into accurate, reliable images. Techniques developed to map plasma around black holes can also accelerate MRI scans or, in fact, improve measurements of the Earth’s rotation and sea level. This multi-disciplinary approach is precisely what my group has focused on for many years.”
Professor Chris Turney, Heriot-Watt University's Deputy Principal of Research and Impact, said: “This collaboration marks an important moment for UK science. Black hole astronomy is a rapidly developing field. Bringing together Dr Akiyama's unique observational leadership with Professor Wiaux's world-class expertise in AI imaging gives us the capability to shape this field going forward.
“The timing matters. New observational campaigns begin within the next few years, and space missions for the 2030s are already in development. The TomoGrav project positions Heriot-Watt University and the wider UK research community to influence how these instruments are designed and how their data is understood. What is especially powerful is that the same technology will strengthen capabilities in healthcare and Earth monitoring. This exemplifies Heriot-Watt's commitment to solving global challenges through research that delivers real benefits for society. By bringing together research disciplines and partners across borders, we're not just advancing fundamental science but creating practical solutions that will improve lives, from faster medical diagnostics to better climate monitoring."
Dr Akiyama's move from MIT to Heriot-Watt University follows the news that another black hole science pioneer, Professor Sera Markoff, will join the University of Cambridge. The new arrivals will significantly enrich and expand the UK’s research community in this field as well as working together on TomoGrav.
For Heriot-Watt University, this creates an opportunity to play a central role in global research efforts by providing the world-leading AI and imaging technology that is necessary to transform black hole science.
The Faraday Discovery Fellowship Accelerated International Route from the Royal Society is a prestigious long-term award supporting talented mid-career research leaders to undertake original research. The programme provides grants to support the development of world-leading research groups in the UK, making strategically important appointments and attracting leading researchers from overseas. The Accelerated International Route through which Dr Akiyama was awarded the Faraday Discovery Fellowship provides a fast-track option for mid-career researchers looking to relocate to the UK from overseas, providing up to £4 million over a five-year period.
By the end of the five-year award, Heriot-Watt will have delivered technology capable of creating high-resolution 3D movies of plasma around black holes from upcoming data, designed optimal configurations for future space telescopes and established a new UK-led research community at the interface of frontier astrophysics and cutting-edge artificial intelligence.
The project brings together a multidisciplinary team of 10 world-renowned partners whose combined expertise spans black hole science, machine learning and imaging technologies, with planned technology transfers within and beyond astronomy.
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