Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jan 2011
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011aas...21730304y&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #217, #303.04; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 43, 2011
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
Given current astrometric precision, observations from the Keck II 10 m telescope have the potential to reveal the effects of general relativity and extended mass on the orbits of stars around the Milky Way's central supermassive black hole, Sgr A*. However, one of the dominant uncertainties in these measurements will be reference frame stability, as an unstable reference frame may produce what appears to be a precession in a star's orbit. In this presentation, we discuss the refinements we have made in constructing the Galactic center astrometric reference frame and show that Sgr A* is localized to within a position of 0.6 mas and a velocity of 0.09 mas/yr, or 3.4 km/s at 8 kpc (1 sigma), a factor of 3 improvement over previous efforts. The two refinements come from improving our knowledge of the optical distortion solution of the NIRC2 camera and from defining a reference frame based on VLA measurements of SiO masers in the Galactic center. While earlier proper motion studies defined a reference frame by assuming no net motion of the stellar cluster, this approach is fundamentally limited by the cluster's intrinsic dispersion and therefore will not improve with time. The stability of our new reference frame should improve steadily with future measurements of the SiO masers in this region (proportional to t(3/2)). This is essential for achieving the necessary reference frame stability required to detect the effects of GR and extended mass on short-period stars at the Galactic center.
Anderson Jeffrey
Clarkson Will
Do Thong T.
Ghez Andrea M.
Lu Jessica R.
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