Related papers: An Improved Distance and Mass Estimate for Sgr A* …
We report new precision measurements of the properties of our Galaxy's supermassive black hole. Based on astrometric (1995-2007) and radial velocity (2000-2007) measurements from the W. M. Keck 10-meter telescopes, a fully unconstrained…
Two recent papers (Ghez et al. 2008, Gillessen et al. 2009) have estimated the mass of and the distance to the massive black hole in the center of the Milky Way using stellar orbits. The two astrometric data sets are independent and yielded…
Over a two year period (1995-1997), we have conducted a diffraction-limited imaging study at 2.2 microns of the inner 6"x6" of the Galaxy's central stellar cluster using the Keck 10-m telescope. The K band images obtained reveal a large…
Using 25 years of data from uninterrupted monitoring of stellar orbits in the Galactic Center, we present an update of the main results from this unique data set: A measurement of mass of and distance to SgrA*. Our progress is not only due…
With the advent of adaptive optics on the W. M. Keck 10 m telescope, two significant steps forward have been taken in building the case for a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way and understanding the black hole's effect…
We present new proper motion measurements and simultaneous orbital solutions for three newly identified (S0-16, S0-19, and S0-20) and four previously known (S0-1, S0-2, S0-4, and S0-5) stars at the Galactic Center. This analysis pinpoints…
We present the results of 16 years of monitoring stellar orbits around the massive black hole in center of the Milky Way using high resolution NIR techniques. This work refines our previous analysis mainly by greatly improving the…
The S-star cluster in the Galactic center allows us to study the physics close to a supermassive black hole, including distinctive dynamical tests of general relativity. Our best estimates for the mass of and the distance to Sgr A* using…
Precision measurements of the stars in short-period orbits around the supermassive black hole at the Galactic Center are now being used to constrain general relativistic effects, such as the gravitational redshift and periapse precession.…
We present a new geometrical method for measuring the distance to the Galactic center (R_0) by solving for the Keplerian orbit of individual stars bound to the black hole associated with the Sgr A* from radial velocity and proper motion…
We present a 0.16% precise and 0.27% accurate determination of R0, the distance to the Galactic Center. Our measurement uses the star S2 on its 16-year orbit around the massive black hole Sgr A* that we followed astrometrically and…
We use 23 years of astrometric and radial velocity data on the orbit of the star S0-2 to constrain a hypothetical intermediate-mass black hole orbiting the massive black hole Sgr A* at the Galactic center. The data place upper limits on…
Empirically determining the averaged variations of the orbital parameters of the stars orbiting the Supermassive Black Hole (SBH) hosted by the Galactic Centre (GC) in Sgr A* is, in principle, a valuable tool to put on the test the General…
Several stars orbit around a black hole candidate of mass $3.7\times 10^6$ M$_{\odot}$, in the region of the Galactic Center (GC). Looking for General Relativistic (GR) periastron shifts is limited by the existence of a stellar cluster…
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…
We present improved relative astrometry for stars within the central half parsec of our Galactic Center based on data obtained with the 10 m W. M. Keck Observatory from 1995 to 2017. The new methods used to improve the astrometric precision…
Near-infrared observations of stellar orbits at the Galactic Center provide conclusive evidence for a massive black hole associated with the compact radio source Sgr A*. The astrometric reference frame for these observations is tied to a…
The ongoing monitoring of the Galactic center and Sgr A*, the central supermassive black hole, produces surprising and unexpected findings. This goes hand in hand with the technical evolution of ground- and space-based telescopes and…
Recent measurements, of the velocities of stars near the center of the Milky Way have provided the strongest evidence for the presence of a supermassive black hole in a galaxy, but the observational uncertainties poorly constrain many of…
The hierarchical nature of galaxy formation suggests that a supermassive black hole binary could exist in our galactic center. We propose a new approach to constraining the possible orbital configuration of such a binary companion to the…