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The spin and quadrupole moment of the supermassive black hole at the Galactic center can in principle be measured via astrometric monitoring of stars orbiting at milliparsec (mpc) distances, allowing tests of general relativistic "no-hair"…
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.…
In this Letter, we demonstrate that short-period stars orbiting around the supermassive black hole in our Galactic Center can successfully be used to probe the gravitational theory in a strong regime. We use 19 years of observations of the…
We review the current state of dynamical modeling for galaxies in terms of being able to measure both the central black hole mass and stellar orbital structure. Both of these must be known adequately to measure either property. The current…
The Galactic center offers us a unique opportunity to test General Relativity (GR) with the orbits of stars around a supermassive black hole. Observations of these stars have been one of the great successes of adaptive optics on 8-10 m…
Observations of the precessing orbits of stars very near the massive black hole in the galactic center could provide measurements of the spin and quadrupole moment of the hole and thereby test the no-hair theorem of general relativity.…
Supermassive black holes in the centre of galaxies dominate the gravitational potential of their surrounding stellar clusters. In these dense environments, stars follow nearly Keplerian orbits, which get slowly distorted as a result of the…
Upcoming and ongoing large area weak lensing surveys will also discover large samples of galaxy clusters. Accurate and precise masses of galaxy clusters are of major importance for cosmology, for example, in establishing well calibrated…
We simulate the astrometric observations of stars moving close to the black hole in the Galactic Center. We show, that for orbits =<1000 AU and position measurements with the accuracy of the Keck Interferometer, the periastron motion of…
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…
This is a pedagogical review of recent results on the interactions of central massive black holes with stars very near them, focused on the black hole in the center of the Milky Way. Table of contents: [1] Introduction [2] Stellar dynamics…
The effect of stars on the lensing properties of the supermassive black hole in the Galactic Center is similar to the effect of planets on microlensing by a star. We show that the dense stellar cluster around SgrA* increases by factors of a…
A massive black hole resides in the center of most, perhaps all galaxies. The one in the center of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, provides a uniquely accessible laboratory for studying in detail the connections and interactions between a…
The measurement of relativistic effects around the galactic center may allow in the near future to strongly constrain the parameters of the supermassive black hole likely present at the galactic center (Sgr A*). As a by-product of these…
This thesis includes two main projects. In the first part, we assess the feasibility of a recently suggested strong-field general relativity test, in which future observations of a hypothetical class of stars orbiting very close to 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…
As the closest example of a galactic nucleus, the Galactic center presents an exquisite laboratory for learning about supermassive black holes (SMBH) and their environs. Detailed studies of stellar dynamics deep in the potential well of a…
We present preliminary results of the application of a new sophisticated code which allows high precision integration of orbits of stars belonging to a dense stellar system moving in the vicinity of a massive black hole. This mimics the…
The S-Stars in the Galactic-center region are found to be on near-perfect Keplerian orbits around presumably a supermassive black hole, with periods of 15-50 yr. Since these stars reach a few percent of light speed at pericenter, various…
The Galactic centre Nuclear Star Cluster is one of the densest stellar clusters in the Galaxy. The stars in its inner portions orbit the supermassive black hole associated with compact radio source Sgr~A* at the orbital speeds of several…