English

Testing RIAF model for Sgr A* using the size measurements

Astrophysics 2009-11-11 v1

Abstract

Recent radio observations by the VLBA at 7 and 3.5 mm produced the high-resolution images of the compact radio source located at the center of our Galaxy--Sgr A*, and detected its wavelength-dependent intrinsic sizes at the two wavelengths. This provides us with a good chance of testing previously-proposed theoretical models for Sgr A*. In this {\em Letter}, we calculate the size based on the radiatively inefficient accretion flow (RIAF) model proposed by Yuan, Quataert & Narayan (2003). We find that the predicted sizes after taking into account the scattering of the interstellar electrons are consistent with the observations. We further predict an image of Sgr A* at 1.3 mm which can be tested by future observations.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0603683,
  title  = {Testing RIAF model for Sgr A* using the size measurements},
  author = {Feng Yuan and Zhi-Qiang Shen and Lei Huang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0603683},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

10 pages, 1 figure; accepted by ApJL