First mid-infrared detection and modeling of a flare from Sgr A*
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2025
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| author | von Fellenberg, Sebastiano D. Roychowdhury, Tamojeet Michail, Joseph M. Sumners, Zach Sanger-Johnson, Grace Fazio, Giovanni G. Haggard, Daryl Hora, Joseph L. Philippov, Alexander Ripperda, Bart Smith, Howard A. Willner, S. P. Witzel, Gunther Zhang, Shuo Becklin, Eric E. Bower, Geoffrey C. Chandra, Sunil Do, Tuan Marin, Macarena Garcia Gurwell, Mark A. Ford, Nicole M. Hada, Kazuhiro Markoff, Sera Morris, Mark R. Neilsen, Joey Sabha, Nadeen B. Seefeldt-Gail, Braden |
| author_facet | von Fellenberg, Sebastiano D. Roychowdhury, Tamojeet Michail, Joseph M. Sumners, Zach Sanger-Johnson, Grace Fazio, Giovanni G. Haggard, Daryl Hora, Joseph L. Philippov, Alexander Ripperda, Bart Smith, Howard A. Willner, S. P. Witzel, Gunther Zhang, Shuo Becklin, Eric E. Bower, Geoffrey C. Chandra, Sunil Do, Tuan Marin, Macarena Garcia Gurwell, Mark A. Ford, Nicole M. Hada, Kazuhiro Markoff, Sera Morris, Mark R. Neilsen, Joey Sabha, Nadeen B. Seefeldt-Gail, Braden |
| contents | The time-variable emission from the accretion flow of Sgr A*, the supermassive black hole at the Galactic Center, has long been examined in the radio-to-mm, near-infrared (NIR), and X-ray regimes of the electromagnetic spectrum. However, until now, sensitivity and angular resolution have been insufficient in the crucial mid-infrared (MIR) regime. The MIRI instrument on JWST has changed that, and we report the first MIR detection of Sgr A*. The detection was during a flare that lasted about 40 minutes, a duration similar to NIR and X-ray flares, and the source's spectral index steepened as the flare ended. The steepening suggests synchrotron cooling is an important process for Sgr A*'s variability and implies magnetic field strengths $\sim$40--70 Gauss in the emission zone. Observations at $1.3~\mathrm{mm}$ with the Submillimeter Array revealed a counterpart flare lagging the MIR flare by $\approx$10 minutes. The observations can be self-consistently explained as synchrotron radiation from a single population of gradually cooling high-energy electrons accelerated through (a combination of) magnetic reconnection and/or magnetized turbulence. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_07415 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | First mid-infrared detection and modeling of a flare from Sgr A* von Fellenberg, Sebastiano D. Roychowdhury, Tamojeet Michail, Joseph M. Sumners, Zach Sanger-Johnson, Grace Fazio, Giovanni G. Haggard, Daryl Hora, Joseph L. Philippov, Alexander Ripperda, Bart Smith, Howard A. Willner, S. P. Witzel, Gunther Zhang, Shuo Becklin, Eric E. Bower, Geoffrey C. Chandra, Sunil Do, Tuan Marin, Macarena Garcia Gurwell, Mark A. Ford, Nicole M. Hada, Kazuhiro Markoff, Sera Morris, Mark R. Neilsen, Joey Sabha, Nadeen B. Seefeldt-Gail, Braden High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena Astrophysics of Galaxies The time-variable emission from the accretion flow of Sgr A*, the supermassive black hole at the Galactic Center, has long been examined in the radio-to-mm, near-infrared (NIR), and X-ray regimes of the electromagnetic spectrum. However, until now, sensitivity and angular resolution have been insufficient in the crucial mid-infrared (MIR) regime. The MIRI instrument on JWST has changed that, and we report the first MIR detection of Sgr A*. The detection was during a flare that lasted about 40 minutes, a duration similar to NIR and X-ray flares, and the source's spectral index steepened as the flare ended. The steepening suggests synchrotron cooling is an important process for Sgr A*'s variability and implies magnetic field strengths $\sim$40--70 Gauss in the emission zone. Observations at $1.3~\mathrm{mm}$ with the Submillimeter Array revealed a counterpart flare lagging the MIR flare by $\approx$10 minutes. The observations can be self-consistently explained as synchrotron radiation from a single population of gradually cooling high-energy electrons accelerated through (a combination of) magnetic reconnection and/or magnetized turbulence. |
| title | First mid-infrared detection and modeling of a flare from Sgr A* |
| topic | High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena Astrophysics of Galaxies |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.07415 |