English

The missing x-rays in Sgr A*: evidence for - not against - a supermassive black hole

Astrophysics 2007-05-23 v1

Abstract

We present a simple argument that the missing x-ray flux from the Galactic Center source Sgr~A* ist not evidence {\it against} -- as claimed by Goldwurm et al. 1994 -- but rather indirect evidence {\it for} the presence of a supermassive black hole. The radio spectrum provides a strict {\it lower} limit for the size of Sgr~A* (R>31011R>3\cdot 10^{11}cm). A more compact source would be completely synchrotron self-absorbed. This size is 10610^6 times larger than a stellar-mass black hole, yet the bolometric radio luminosity is comparable to or even larger than the x-ray luminosity where matter accreting onto a {\it stellar-mass} black hole would inevitably radiate the {\it bulk} of its luminosity. Hence, either the bulk of the accretion power is radiated in the UV (where the limits are higher), or the accretion has to stop at the radio-scale to avoid producing x-rays brighter than the radio emission. Both would be a natural consequence of a supermasive black hole with 106M\sun\sim10^6M_{\sun}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/9512092,
  title  = {The missing x-rays in Sgr A*: evidence for - not against - a supermassive black hole},
  author = {Heino Falcke and Peter L. Biermann},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/9512092},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

to appear in ``Jets from Stars and Galactic Nuclei'', Springer Lecture Notes, plain TeX, 4 pages, also at http://www.astro.umd.edu/~hfalcke/publications.html