What stellar orbit is needed to measure the spin of the Galactic center black hole from astrometric data?

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Waisberg, Idel, Dexter, Jason, Gillessen, Stefan, Pfuhl, Oliver, Eisenhauer, Frank, Plewa, Phillip M., Bauböck, Michi, Jimenez-Rosales, Alejandra, Habibi, Maryam, Ott, Thomas, von Fellenberg, Sebastiano, Gao, Feng, Widmann, Felix, Genzel, Reinhard
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Publié: 2018
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author Waisberg, Idel
Dexter, Jason
Gillessen, Stefan
Pfuhl, Oliver
Eisenhauer, Frank
Plewa, Phillip M.
Bauböck, Michi
Jimenez-Rosales, Alejandra
Habibi, Maryam
Ott, Thomas
von Fellenberg, Sebastiano
Gao, Feng
Widmann, Felix
Genzel, Reinhard
author_facet Waisberg, Idel
Dexter, Jason
Gillessen, Stefan
Pfuhl, Oliver
Eisenhauer, Frank
Plewa, Phillip M.
Bauböck, Michi
Jimenez-Rosales, Alejandra
Habibi, Maryam
Ott, Thomas
von Fellenberg, Sebastiano
Gao, Feng
Widmann, Felix
Genzel, Reinhard
contents Astrometric and spectroscopic monitoring of individual stars orbiting the supermassive black hole in the Galactic Center offer a promising way to detect general relativistic effects. While low-order effects are expected to be detected following the periastron passage of S2 in Spring 2018, detecting higher-order effects due to black hole spin will require the discovery of closer stars. In this paper, we set out to determine the requirements such a star would have to satisfy to allow the detection of black hole spin. We focus on the instrument GRAVITY, which saw first light in 2016 and which is expected to achieve astrometric accuracies $10-100 μ$as. For an observing campaign with duration $T$ years, $N_{obs}$ total observations, astrometric precision $σ_x$ and normalized black hole spin $χ$, we find that $a_{orb}(1-e^2)^{3/4} \lesssim 300 R_S \sqrt{\frac{T}{4 \text{years}}} \left(\frac{N_{obs}}{120}\right)^{0.25} \sqrt{\frac{10 μas}{σ_x}} \sqrt{\fracχ{0.9}}$ is needed. For $χ=0.9$ and a potential observing campaign with $σ_x = 10 μ$as, 30 observations/year and duration 4-10 years, we expect $\sim 0.1$ star with $K<19$ satisfying this constraint based on the current knowledge about the stellar population in the central 1". We also propose a method through which GRAVITY could potentially measure radial velocities with precision $\sim 50$ km/s. If the astrometric precision can be maintained, adding radial velocity information increases the expected number of stars by roughly a factor of two. While we focus on GRAVITY, the results can also be scaled to parameters relevant for future extremely large telescopes.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_1802_08198
institution arXiv
publishDate 2018
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle What stellar orbit is needed to measure the spin of the Galactic center black hole from astrometric data?
Waisberg, Idel
Dexter, Jason
Gillessen, Stefan
Pfuhl, Oliver
Eisenhauer, Frank
Plewa, Phillip M.
Bauböck, Michi
Jimenez-Rosales, Alejandra
Habibi, Maryam
Ott, Thomas
von Fellenberg, Sebastiano
Gao, Feng
Widmann, Felix
Genzel, Reinhard
Astrophysics of Galaxies
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Astrometric and spectroscopic monitoring of individual stars orbiting the supermassive black hole in the Galactic Center offer a promising way to detect general relativistic effects. While low-order effects are expected to be detected following the periastron passage of S2 in Spring 2018, detecting higher-order effects due to black hole spin will require the discovery of closer stars. In this paper, we set out to determine the requirements such a star would have to satisfy to allow the detection of black hole spin. We focus on the instrument GRAVITY, which saw first light in 2016 and which is expected to achieve astrometric accuracies $10-100 μ$as. For an observing campaign with duration $T$ years, $N_{obs}$ total observations, astrometric precision $σ_x$ and normalized black hole spin $χ$, we find that $a_{orb}(1-e^2)^{3/4} \lesssim 300 R_S \sqrt{\frac{T}{4 \text{years}}} \left(\frac{N_{obs}}{120}\right)^{0.25} \sqrt{\frac{10 μas}{σ_x}} \sqrt{\fracχ{0.9}}$ is needed. For $χ=0.9$ and a potential observing campaign with $σ_x = 10 μ$as, 30 observations/year and duration 4-10 years, we expect $\sim 0.1$ star with $K<19$ satisfying this constraint based on the current knowledge about the stellar population in the central 1". We also propose a method through which GRAVITY could potentially measure radial velocities with precision $\sim 50$ km/s. If the astrometric precision can be maintained, adding radial velocity information increases the expected number of stars by roughly a factor of two. While we focus on GRAVITY, the results can also be scaled to parameters relevant for future extremely large telescopes.
title What stellar orbit is needed to measure the spin of the Galactic center black hole from astrometric data?
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.08198