SIMBAD references

2018A&A...618L..10G - Astronomy and Astrophysics, volume 618, L10-10 (2018/1-0)

Detection of orbital motions near the last stable circular orbit of the massive black hole SgrA*.

GRAVITY COLLABORATION, ABUTER R., AMORIM A., BAUBOCK M., BERGER J.P., BONNET H., BRANDNER W., CLENET Y., COUDE DU FORESTO V., DE ZEEUW P.T., DEEN C., DEXTER J., DUVERT G., ECKART A., EISENHAUER F., FORSTER SCHREIBER N.M., GARCIA P., GAO F., GENDRON E., GENZEL R., GILLESSEN S., GUAJARDO P., HABIBI M., HAUBOIS X., HENNING T., HIPPLER S., HORROBIN M., HUBER A., JIMENEZ-ROSALES A., JOCOU L., KERVELLA P., LACOUR S., LAPEYRERE V., LAZAREFF B., LE BOUQUIN J.-B., LENA P., LIPPA M., OTT T., PANDURO J., PAUMARD T., PERRAUT K., PERRIN G., PFUHL O., PLEWA P.M., RABIEN S., RODRIGUEZ-COIRA G., ROUSSET G., STERNBERG A., STRAUB O., STRAUBMEIER C., STURM E., TACCONI L.J., VINCENT F., VON FELLENBERG S., WAISBERG I., WIDMANN F., WIEPRECHT E., WIEZORREK E., WOILLEZ J. and YAZICI S.

Abstract (from CDS):

We report the detection of continuous positional and polarization changes of the compact source SgrA* in high states ("flares") of its variable near-infrared emission with the near-infrared GRAVITY-Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) beam-combining instrument. In three prominent bright flares, the position centroids exhibit clockwise looped motion on the sky, on scales of typically 150 µas over a few tens of minutes, corresponding to about 30% the speed of light. At the same time, the flares exhibit continuous rotation of the polarization angle, with about the same 45(±15)min period as that of the centroid motions. Modelling with relativistic ray tracing shows that these findings are all consistent with a near face-on, circular orbit of a compact polarized "hot spot" of infrared synchrotron emission at approximately six to ten times the gravitational radius of a black hole of 4 million solar masses. This corresponds to the region just outside the innermost, stable, prograde circular orbit (ISCO) of a Schwarzschild-Kerr black hole, or near the retrograde ISCO of a highly spun-up Kerr hole. The polarization signature is consistent with orbital motion in a strong poloidal magnetic field.

Abstract Copyright: © ESO 2018

Journal keyword(s): Galaxy: center - black hole physics - gravitation - relativistic processes

VizieR on-line data: <Available at CDS (J/A+A/618/L10): avg.dat wais.dat pfuhl.dat>

CDS comments: Appendix A. Object R2 not identified.

Simbad objects: 11

Full paper

View the references in ADS

To bookmark this query, right click on this link: simbad:2018A&A...618L..10G and select 'bookmark this link' or equivalent in the popup menu