Event Horizon Telescope : Earth-sized mm-VLBI array to image supermassive black holes

Immediate vicinity of a supermassive black hole (SMBH) is an important place to test general relativity in strong gravity regime. Also, this is a place where mass accretion and jet formation actively occurs at the centers of active galaxies. Theoretical studies predict presence of bright ring-like emission encircling an accreting SMBH with a diameter of about 5 Schwarzschild radii, and a flux depression at the center (i.e., BH shadow). Direct imaging of the BH shadow is accordingly of great importance in modern astrophysics. However, the angular sizes of the horizon-scale structures are desperately small (e.g., ~40-50 microarcseconds (uas) diameter for the nearest best candidates). This poses serious challenges to observe them directly. Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is a global network of sensitive radio telescopes operating at 230 GHz (1.3 mm), providing ultra-high angular resolution of 20 uas by cutting-edge very long baseline interferometry techniques. With this resolution, EHT aims to directly image the nearest SMBHs; M87 and the galactic center Sgr $A{\ast}$ (~40-50 uas diameters). In Spring 2017, the EHT collaboration conducted a global campaign of EHT and multiwavelength observations of M87 and Sgr $A{\ast}$, with addition of the phased ALMA to the 1.3mm VLBI array. In this talk, I review results from past mm-VLBI and EHT observations, provide updates on the results from the 2017 campaign, and future perspectives.