Constraints on the Galactic Center Black Hole Mass from X-Ray Data

Details Constraints on the Galactic Center Black Hole Mass from X-Ray Data Constraints on the Galactic Center Black Hole Mass from X-Ray Data

Dec 1992

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1992aas...18110904m&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, 181st AAS Meeting, #109.04; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 24, p.1296

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

1

Scientific paper

If, as many believe, Sgr A(*) is a massive black hole at the Galactic Center, one should expect it to be a source of X-ray activity, behaving basically as a scaled-down active galactic nucleus. An unavoidable source of accretion is the wind from IRS 16, a nearby group of hot, massive stars. Since the density and velocity of the accreting matter are known from observations, the accretion rate is basically a function of the putative black hole mass, M_h, only. Based on this and on recent theories on X-ray activity from active galactic nuclei, we have calculated the expected parameters for X-ray flares such as the total energy content and the characteristic time between successive bursts. These parameters turn out to be a function of M_h as well. Comparing our results with available X-ray observations which show Sgr A(*) to have surprisingly low activity levels, we conclude that the putative black hole in the Galactic Center cannot have a mass greater than about 10(3) M_sun. This conclusion is consistent with the upper limits to the black hole mass found by different methods earlier ((1) and references therein). \ref{(1) Ozernoy, L.M. 1992, in Testing the AGN Paradigm (eds. S.S. Holt, etal) AIP Conf. Proc. 254, 44.} () NAS/NRC Senior Research Associate

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