Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jan 2012
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2012aas...21944501i&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #219, #445.01
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
We Present new observations of the [Ne II] emission from the ionized gas in Sgr A West with improved resolution and sensitivity. About half of the emission comes from gas with kinematics indicating it is moving on nearly circular orbits in a plane tipped about 25 degrees from the Galactic plane. This plane is consistent with that derived previously for the circumnuclear molecular disk and the northern arm and western arc ionized features. However, unlike most previous studies, we conclude that the ionized gas is not moving along the ionized features, but rather diagonally across them. The observed speeds are close to, but probably somewhat less than expected for orbital motions in the potential of the central black hole and stars. The spatial distribution of the emission is best fitted by a spiral pattern. We discuss possible physical explanations for the spatial distribution and kinematics of the ionized gas, but are unable to find a satisfactory model.
This work was supported by NSF grant AST-0607312.
Irons Wesley
Lacy John H.
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