English

Implication of spin constraints by the Event Horizon Telescope on stellar orbits in the Galactic Center

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2022-06-29 v2 High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

Abstract

The center of the Milky Way hosts the closest supermassive black hole, SgrA^*. Decades of near-infrared observations of our Galactic Center have shown the presence of a small population of stars (the so called S-star cluster) orbiting SgrA^*, which were recently reported to be arranged in two orthogonal disks. In this case, the timescale for Lense-Thirring precession of S-stars should be longer than their age, implying a low spin for SgrA^*. In contrast, the recent results by the Event Horizon Telescope favor a highly-spinning SgrA^*, which seem to suggest that the S-stars could not be arranged in disks. Alternatively, the spin of SgrA^* must be small, suggesting that the models for its observed image are incomplete.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2205.12274,
  title  = {Implication of spin constraints by the Event Horizon Telescope on stellar orbits in the Galactic Center},
  author = {Giacomo Fragione and Abraham Loeb},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2205.12274},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

4 pages, 3 figures, accepted by ApJ Letters