On The Nature of the Compact Dark Mass at the Galactic Center

Details On The Nature of the Compact Dark Mass at the Galactic Center On The Nature of the Compact Dark Mass at the Galactic Center

2005-12-08

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0512211v2

Astrophys.J.638:L21-L24,2006

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

6 pages, 2 figures, submitted to ApJ Letters

Scientific paper

10.1086/500930

We consider a model in which Sgr A*, the 3.5x10^6 M_sun supermassive black hole candidate at the Galactic Center, is a compact object with a surface. Given the very low quiescent luminosity of Sgr A* in the near infrared, the existence of a hard surface, even in the limit in which the radius approaches the horizon, places severe constraints upon the steady mass accretion rate in the source, requiring dM/dt < 10^-12 M_sun/yr. This limit is well below the minimum accretion rate needed to power the observed submillimeter luminosity of Sgr A*. We thus argue that Sgr A* does not have a surface, i.e., it must have an event horizon. The argument could be made more restrictive by an order of magnitude with microarcsecond resolution imaging, e.g., with submillimeter VLBI.

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