Using 25 years of data from uninterrupted monitoring of stellar orbits in the Galactic Center, we present an update of the main results from this unique data set: a measurement of mass and distance ...to Sgr A*. Our progress is not only due to the eight-year increase in time base, but also to the improved definition of the coordinate system. The star S2 continues to yield the best constraints on the mass of and distance to Sgr A*; the statistical errors of 0.13 × 10 6 M and 0.12 kpc have halved compared to the previous study. The S2 orbit fit is robust and does not need any prior information. Using coordinate system priors, the star S1 also yields tight constraints on mass and distance. For a combined orbit fit, we use 17 stars, which yields our current best estimates for mass and distance: M = 4.28 0.10 stat . 0.21 sys × 10 6 M and R 0 = 8.32 0.07 stat . 0.14 sys kpc . These numbers are in agreement with the recent determination of R0 from the statistical cluster parallax. The positions of the mass, of the near-infrared flares from Sgr A*, and of the radio source Sgr A* agree to within 1 mas. In total, we have determined orbits for 40 stars so far, a sample which consists of 32 stars with randomly oriented orbits and a thermal eccentricity distribution, plus eight stars that we can explicitly show are members of the clockwise disk of young stars, and which have lower-eccentricity orbits.
Context.
Clouds are ubiquitous in exoplanet atmospheres and they represent a challenge for the model interpretation of their spectra. When generating a large number of model spectra, complex cloud ...models often prove too costly numerically, whereas more efficient models may be overly simplified.
Aims.
We aim to constrain the atmospheric properties of the directly imaged planet HR 8799e with a free retrieval approach.
Methods.
We used our radiative transfer code petitRADTRANS for generating the spectra, which we coupled to the PyMultiNest tool. We added the effect of multiple scattering which is important for treating clouds. Two cloud model parameterizations are tested: the first incorporates the mixing and settling of condensates, the second simply parameterizes the functional form of the opacity.
Results.
In mock retrievals, using an inadequate cloud model may result in atmospheres that are more isothermal and less cloudy than the input. Applying our framework on observations of HR 8799e made with the GPI, SPHERE, and GRAVITY, we find a cloudy atmosphere governed by disequilibrium chemistry, confirming previous analyses. We retrieve that C/O = 0.60
−0.08
+0.07
. Other models have not yet produced a well constrained C/O value for this planet. The retrieved C/O values of both cloud models are consistent, while leading to different atmospheric structures: either cloudy or more isothermal and less cloudy. Fitting the observations with the self-consistent Exo-REM model leads to comparable results, without constraining C/O.
Conclusions.
With data from the most sensitive instruments, retrieval analyses of directly imaged planets are possible. The inferred C/O ratio of HR 8799e is independent of the cloud model and thus appears to be a robust. This C/O is consistent with stellar, which could indicate that the HR 8799e formed outside the CO
2
or CO iceline. As it is the innermost planet of the system, this constraint could apply to all HR 8799 planets.
We present the results of 16 years of monitoring stellar orbits around the massive black hole in the center of the Milky Way, using high-resolution near-infrared techniques. This work refines our ...previous analysis mainly by greatly improving the definition of the coordinate system, which reaches a long-term astrometric accuracy of 300 is a subset of as, and by investigating in detail the individual systematic error contributions. The combination of a long-time baseline and the excellent astrometric accuracy of adaptive optics data allows us to determine orbits of 28 stars, including the star S2, which has completed a full revolution since our monitoring began. Our main results are: all stellar orbits are fit extremely well by a single-point-mass potential to within the astrometric uncertainties, which are now 6X better than in previous studies. The central object mass is , where the fractional statistical error of 1.5% is nearly independent from R 0, and the main uncertainty is due to the uncertainty in R 0. Our current best estimate for the distance to the Galactic center is R 0 = 8.33 ± 0.35 kpc. The dominant errors in this value are systematic. The mass scales with distance as (3.95 ± 0.06) X 106(R 0/8 kpc)2.19 M . The orientations of orbital angular momenta for stars in the central arcsecond are random. We identify six of the stars with orbital solutions as late-type stars, and six early-type stars as members of the clockwise-rotating disk system, as was previously proposed. We constrain the extended dark mass enclosed between the pericenter and apocenter of S2 at less than 0.066, at the 99% confidence level, of the mass of Sgr A*. This is two orders of magnitudes larger than what one would expect from other theoretical and observational estimates.
Abstract
We present the first fully simultaneous fits to the near-infrared (NIR) and X-ray spectral slope (and its evolution) during a very bright flare from Sgr A*, the supermassive black hole at ...the Milky Way's centre. Our study arises from ambitious multiwavelength monitoring campaigns with XMM–Newton, NuSTAR and SINFONI. The average multiwavelength spectrum is well reproduced by a broken power law with ΓNIR = 1.7 ± 0.1 and ΓX = 2.27 ± 0.12. The difference in spectral slopes (ΔΓ = 0.57 ± 0.09) strongly supports synchrotron emission with a cooling break. The flare starts first in the NIR with a flat and bright NIR spectrum, while X-ray radiation is detected only after about 103 s, when a very steep X-ray spectrum (ΔΓ = 1.8 ± 0.4) is observed. These measurements are consistent with synchrotron emission with a cooling break and they suggest that the high-energy cut-off in the electron distribution (γmax) induces an initial cut-off in the optical–UV band that evolves slowly into the X-ray band. The temporal and spectral evolution observed in all bright X-ray flares are also in line with a slow evolution of γmax. We also observe hints for a variation of the cooling break that might be induced by an evolution of the magnetic field (from B ∼ 30 ± 8 G to B ∼ 4.8 ± 1.7 G at the X-ray peak). Such drop of the magnetic field at the flare peak would be expected if the acceleration mechanism is tapping energy from the magnetic field, such as in magnetic reconnection. We conclude that synchrotron emission with a cooling break is a viable process for Sgr A*'s flaring emission.
(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae and/or non-USASCII text omitted)We obtain the basic properties of the nuclear cluster of the Milky Way. First, we investigate the structural properties by constructing ...a stellar density map of the central 1000'' using extinction-corrected old star counts from VISTA, WFC3/IR, and VLT/NACO data. We describe the data using two components. The inner, slightly flattened (axis ratio of q= 0.80 + or - 0.04) 7 component is the nuclear cluster, while the outer component corresponds to the stellar component of the circumnuclear zone. For the nuclear cluster, we measure a half-light radius of 178 + or - 0.04 51" thickapproximate + or - 2 pc and a luminosity of M sub(ks)= - 16.0 + or - 0.5. Second, we measure detailed dynamics out to 4 pc. We obtain 10,351 proper motions from AO data, and 2513 radial velocities from VLT/SINFONI data. We determine the cluster mass by means of isotropic spherical Jeans modeling. We fix the distance to the Galactic Center and the mass of the supermassive black hole. We model the cluster either with a constant M/L or with a power law. For the latter case, we obtain a slope of 1.18 + or - 0.06. We get a cluster mass within 100'' of ... for both modeling approaches. A model which includes the observed flattening gives a 47% larger mass (see Chatzopoulos et al.). Our results slightly favor a core over a cusp in the mass profile. By minimizing the number of unbound stars within 8'', we obtain a distance of ... kpc when using an R sub(0) supermassive black hole mass relation from stellar orbits. Combining our results, we obtain ... , which is roughly consistent with a Chabrier IMF.
We study the initial mass function (IMF) of one of the most massive Galactic star-forming regions NGC 3603 to answer a fundamental question in current astrophysics: is the IMF universal, or does it ...vary? Using our very deep, high angular resolution JHK sub(S)L' images obtained with NAOS-CONICA at the VLT at ESO, we have successfully revealed the stellar population down to the subsolar mass range in the core of the starburst cluster. The derived IMF of NGC 3603 is reasonably fitted by a single power law with index image within a mass range of 0.4-20 M sub(image), substantially flatter than the Salpeter-like IMF. A strong radial steepening of the IMF is observed mainly in the inner image field, indicating mass segregation in the cluster center. We estimate the total mass of NGC 3603 to be about image M sub(image). The derived core density is >=image M sub(image) pc super(-3), an order of magnitude larger than, e.g., the Orion Nebula Cluster. The estimate of the half-mass relaxation time for solar-mass stars is about 10-40 Myr, suggesting that the intermediate- and low-mass stars have not yet been affected significantly by the dynamical relaxation in the cluster. The relaxation time for the high-mass stars can be comparable to the age of the cluster. We estimate that the stars residing outside the observed field cannot steepen the IMF significantly, indicating our IMF adequately describes the whole cluster. Analyzing thoroughly the systematic uncertainties in our IMF determination, we conclude that the power-law index of the IMF of NGC 3603 is image. Our result thus supports the hypothesis of a potential top-heavy IMF in massive star-forming clusters and starbursts.
Two recent papers (Ghez et al. 2008; Gillessen et al. 2009) have estimated the mass of and the distance to the massive black hole (MBH) in the center of the Milky Way using stellar orbits. The two ...astrometric data sets are independent and yielded consistent results, even though the measured positions do not match when simply overplotting the two sets. In this Letter, we show that the two sets can be brought to excellent agreement with each other when we allow for a small offset in the definition of the reference frame of the two data sets. The required offsets in the coordinates and velocities of the origin of the reference frames are consistent with the uncertainties given in Ghez et al. The so-combined data set allows for a moderate improvement of the statistical errors of the mass of and the distance to Sgr A*, but the overall accuracies of these numbers are dominated by systematic errors and the long-term calibration of the reference frame. We obtain R{sub 0} = 8.28 +- 0.15|{sub stat} +- 0.29|{sub sys} kpc and M{sub MBH} = 4.30 +- 0.20|{sub stat} +- 0.30|{sub sys} x 10{sup 6} M{sub sun} as best estimates from a multi-star fit.
The Galactic Center black hole Sgr A* is the archetypical example of an underfed massive black hole. The extremely low accretion rate can be understood in radiatively inefficient accretion flow ...models. Testing those models has proven to be difficult due to the lack of suitable probes. Radio and submillimeter polarization measurements constrain the flow very close to the event horizon. X-ray observations resolving the Bondi radius yield an estimate roughly four orders of magnitude further out. Here, we present a new, indirect measurement of the accretion flow density at intermediate radii. We use the dynamics of the gas cloud G2 to probe the ambient density. We detect the presence of a drag force slowing down G2 with a statistical significance of 9 . This probes the accretion flow density at around 1000 Schwarzschild radii and yields a number density of 4 × 103 cm−3. Self-similar accretion models where the density follows a power-law radial profile between the inner zone and the Bondi radius have predicted similar values.
ABSTRACT
Large-amplitude Sgr A* near-infrared (NIR) flares result from energy injection into electrons near the black hole event horizon. Astrometry data show continuous rotation of the emission ...region during bright flares, and corresponding rotation of the linear polarization angle. One broad class of physical flare models invokes magnetic reconnection. Here, we show that such a scenario can arise in a general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulation of a magnetically arrested disc. Saturation of magnetic flux triggers eruption events, where magnetically dominated plasma is expelled from near the horizon and forms a rotating, spiral structure. Dissipation occurs via reconnection at the interface of the magnetically dominated plasma and surrounding fluid. This dissipation is associated with large increases in NIR emission in models of Sgr A*, with durations and amplitudes consistent with the observed flares. Such events occur at roughly the time-scale to re-accumulate the magnetic flux from the inner accretion disc, ≃10 h for Sgr A*. We study NIR observables from one sample event to show that the emission morphology tracks the boundary of the magnetically dominated region. As the region rotates around the black hole, the NIR centroid and linear polarization angle both undergo continuous rotation, similar to the behaviour seen in Sgr A* flares.
We present a census of ionized gas outflows in 599 normal galaxies at redshift 0.6 < z < 2.7, mostly based on integral field spectroscopy of Hα, N ii, and S ii line emission. The sample fairly ...homogeneously covers the main sequence of star-forming galaxies with masses 9.0 < log(M */M ⊙) < 11.7, and probes into the regimes of quiescent galaxies and starburst outliers. About one-third exhibits the high-velocity component indicative of outflows, roughly equally split into winds driven by star formation (SF) and active galactic nuclei (AGNs). The incidence of SF-driven winds correlates mainly with SF properties. These outflows have typical velocities of ∼450 km s−1, local electron densities of n e ∼ 380 cm−3, modest mass loading factors of ∼0.1–0.2 at all galaxy masses, and energetics compatible with momentum driving by young stellar populations. The SF-driven winds may escape from log(M */M ⊙) ≲ 10.3 galaxies, but substantial mass, momentum, and energy in hotter and colder outflow phases seem required to account for low galaxy formation efficiencies in the low-mass regime. Faster AGN-driven outflows (∼1000–2000 km s−1) are commonly detected above log(M */M ⊙) ∼ 10.7, in up to ∼75% of log(M */M ⊙) ≳ 11.2 galaxies. The incidence, strength, and velocity of AGN-driven winds strongly correlates with stellar mass and central concentration. Their outflowing ionized gas appears denser (n e ∼ 1000 cm−3), and possibly compressed and shock-excited. These winds have comparable mass loading factors as the SF-driven winds but carry ∼10 (∼50) times more momentum (energy). The results confirm our previous findings of high-duty-cycle, energy-driven outflows powered by AGN above the Schechter mass, which may contribute to SF quenching.
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