Physics – Optics
Scientific paper
May 2009
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009aas...21424002g&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #214, #240.02; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.743
Physics
Optics
Scientific paper
The proximity of our Galaxy's center presents a unique opportunity to study a galactic nucleus with orders of magnitude higher spatial resolution than can be brought to bear on any other galaxy. The advantage of the milli-parsec scales that can be probed with Adaptive Optics has led to a number of exciting results, including (1) an extremely strong case for the existence of a supermassive black hole (SMBH) at the center of a normal galaxy (without an AGN), based on measurements of stellar orbits, (2) the first infrared detection of SgrA*, the radio source associated with the central SMBH, and its dramatic short-timescale infrared variations showing red noise behavior and a power-law break consistent with the X-ray variability seen in AGNs, (3) discovery that the stars within 0.01 pc (0."25) of the central SMBH are young stars (B stars) and may be the remainders of the dynamical process that leads to the ejection of the hypervelocity stars that have recently been discovered in the Galactic halo, (4) discovery of a disk of massive young stars orbiting the SMBH at radii between 0.04 pc (1") and 0.5 pc, likely indicating an in-situ formation event 5-7 million years ago. Over the coming decade, continued monitoring of stellar orbits, improvements in AO performance, and higher angular resolution from larger telescopes offer several exiciting new directions including (1) precision measurements of the Galaxy's central potential, possibly providing both a unique test of General Relativity and a detection of the extended dark matter distribution that is predicted to exist around the SMBH and (2) insight into how SMBHs at the centers of galaxies form, grow and interact with their environs as well as on the exotic processes at work in the densest stellar clusters in the Universe.
This work was supported by the NSF.
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