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Related papers: Relativistic Signatures at the Galactic Center

200 papers

In this paper we review and discuss some of the intriguing properties of the Galactic Center supermassive black hole candidate Sgr A*. Of all possible black hole sources, the event horizon of Sgr A*, subtends the largest angular scale on…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2015-05-20 Heino Falcke , Sera Markoff , Geoffrey C. Bower , Charles F. Gammie , Monika Moscibrodzka , Dipankar Maitra

We report new infrared measurements of the supermassive black hole at the Galactic Center, Sgr A*, over a decade that was previously inaccessible at these wavelengths. This enables a variability study that addresses variability timescales…

The centre of our galaxy hosts the nearest super-massive black hole to the solar system, identified to the compact radio source Sgr A*. High energy experiments have tried in the past to detect the X/gamma-ray emission expected from the…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-06-23 Andrea Goldwurm

We address a question whether the observed light curves of X-ray flares originating deep in galactic cores can give us independent constraints on the mass of the central supermassive black hole. To this end we study four brightest flares…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2017-10-18 G. D. Karssen , M. Bursa , A. Eckart , M. Valencia-S. , M. Dovciak , V. Karas , J. Horak

We present the first detection from the Spitzer Space Telescope of 4.5 micron variability from Sgr A*, the emitting source associated with the Milky Way's central black hole. The >23 hour continuous light curve was obtained with the IRAC…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2015-06-22 J. L. Hora , G. Witzel , M. L. N. Ashby , E. E. Becklin , S. Carey , G. G. Fazio , A. Ghez , J. Ingalls , L. Meyer , M. R. Morris , H. A. Smith , S. P. Willner

We report the discovery of variability in the linear polarization from the Galactic Center black hole source, Sagittarius A*. New polarimetry obtained with the Berkeley-Illinois-Maryland Association array at a wavelength of 1.3 mm shows a…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-10 Geoffrey C. Bower , Heino Falcke , Melvyn C. H. Wright , Donald C. Backer

The Galactic Center is an excellent laboratory for studying phenomena and physical processes that may be occurring in many other galactic nuclei. The Center of our Milky Way is by far the closest galactic nucleus, and observations with…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-05-19 Reinhard Genzel , Frank Eisenhauer , Stefan Gillessen

Our existence in the Universe resulted from a rare combination of circumstances. The same must hold for any highly developed extraterrestrial civilisation, and if they have ever existed in the Milky Way, they would likely be scattered over…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2020-04-28 Marek Abramowicz , Michal Bejger , Eric Gourgoulhon , Odele Straub

We summarize the current state of polarization observations of Sagittarius A*, the compact radio source and supermassive black hole candidate in the Galactic Center. These observations are providing new tools for understanding accretion…

Astrophysics · Physics 2007-05-23 Geoffrey C. Bower

Sgr A* is a source of strongly variable emission in several energy bands. It is generally agreed that this emission comes from the material surrounding the black hole which is either falling in or flowing out. The activity must be driven by…

Astrophysics · Physics 2007-12-20 B. Czerny , M. Moscibrodzka , D. Proga , T. Das , A. Siemiginowska

Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) is the variable radio, near-infrared (NIR), and X-ray source associated with accretion onto the Galactic center black hole. We present an analysis of the most comprehensive NIR variability dataset of Sgr A* to date:…

We determine the characteristics of the 7mm to 20cm wavelength radio variability in Sgr A* on time scales from days to three decades. The amplitude of the intensity modulation is between 30 and 39% at all wavelengths. Analysis of uniformly…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-13 Jean-Pierre Macquart , Geoff Bower

Sagittarius A* is a compact radio source at the Galactic center, powered by accretion of fully ionized plasmas into a supermassive black hole. However, the radio emission cannot be produced through the thermal synchrotron process by a…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2009-04-02 Kyle W. Martin , Siming Liu , Chris Fragile , Cong Yu , Chris L. Fryer

The radiative counterpart of the supermassive black hole at the Galactic Centre, Sagittarius A*, displays flaring emission in the X-ray band atop a steady, quiescent level. Flares are also observed in the near-infrared band. The physical…

Sgr A*, the 4 x 10^6 solar-mass supermassive black hole at the Galactic Center, exhibits frequent flaring with X-ray luminosities of L_X ~ 10^35--10^36 erg s^-1, while its ultraviolet (UV) emission remains unconstrained due to extreme…

Sgr A* is the variable electromagnetic source associated with accretion onto the Galactic center supermassive black hole. While the near-infrared (NIR) variability of Sgr A* was shown to be consistent over two decades, unprecedented…

The compact, nonthermal radio source Sgr A* at the Galactic Center appears to be coincident with a 2.6 million solar mass point-like object. Its energy source may be the release of gravitational energy as gas from the interstellar medium…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-10-31 Robert F. Coker , Fulvio Melia

We report the detection of a variable point source, imaged at L'(3.8 microns) with the W. M. Keck II 10-meter telescope's adaptive optics system, that is coincident to within 18 mas of the Galaxy's central supermassive black hole and the…

The radio source Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), is thought to be a supermassive black hole located at the centre of our Galaxy, that is accreting gas from the surrounding region. Using the high inferred accretion rates, however, standard…

Astrophysics · Physics 2007-05-23 Rohan Mahadevan

Near-IR and X-ray flares have been detected from the supermassive black hole Sgr A* at the center of our Galaxy with a (quasi)-period of ~17-20 minutes, suggesting an emission region only a few Schwarzschild radii above the event horizon.…