Spitzer, VLT and Keck NIR light curves of SgrA*

DOI

Sagittarius A (Sgr A) is the variable radio, near-infrared (NIR), and X-ray source associated with accretion onto the Galactic center black hole. We present an analysis of the most comprehensive NIR variability data set of Sgr A to date: eight 24 hr epochs of continuous monitoring of Sgr A at 4.5{mu}m with the IRAC instrument on the Spitzer Space Telescope, 93 epochs of 2.18{mu}m data from Naos Conica at the Very Large Telescope, and 30 epochs of 2.12{mu}m data from the NIRC2 camera at the Keck Observatory, in total 94929 measurements. A new approximate Bayesian computation method for fitting the first-order structure function extracts information beyond current fast Fourier transformation (FFT) methods of power spectral density (PSD) estimation. With a combined fit of the data of all three observatories, the characteristic coherence timescale of Sgr A is {tau}b=243_-57_^+82^min (90% credible interval). The PSD has no detectable features on timescales down to 8.5min (95% credible level), which is the ISCO orbital frequency for a dimensionless spin parameter a=0.92. One light curve measured simultaneously at 2.12 and 4.5{mu}m during a low flux-density phase gave a spectral index {alpha}s=1.6+/-0.1 (F_{nu}{propto}{nu}^-{alpha}_s^). This value implies that the Sgr A NIR color becomes bluer during higher flux-density phases. The probability densities of flux densities of the combined data sets are best fit by log-normal distributions. Based on these distributions, the Sgr A* spectral energy distribution is consistent with synchrotron radiation from a non-thermal electron population from below 20GHz through the NIR.

Identifier
DOI http://doi.org/10.26093/cds/vizier.18630015
Source https://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/lp/custom/CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/863/15
Related Identifier https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/ApJ/863/15
Related Identifier https://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/ApJ/863/15
Metadata Access http://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/pmh/pubreg.xml?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_b2find&identifier=ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/863/15
Provenance
Creator Witzel G.; Martinez G.; Hora J.; Willner S.P.; Morris M.R.; Gammie C.,Becklin E.E.; Ashby M.L.N.; Baganoff F.; Carey S.; Do T.; Fazio G.G.,Ghez A.; Glaccum W.J.; Haggard D.; Herrero-Illana R.; Ingalls J.,Narayan R.; Smith H.A.
Publisher CDS
Publication Year 2019
Rights https://cds.unistra.fr/vizier-org/licences_vizier.html
OpenAccess true
Contact CDS support team <cds-question(at)unistra.fr>
Representation
Resource Type Dataset; AstroObjects
Discipline Astrophysics and Astronomy; Galactic and extragalactic Astronomy; Natural Sciences; Observational Astronomy; Physics