VLBI Observations of the Galactic Center Source Sgr A* at 86 GHz and 215 GHz

1998/12/02 by T. P. Krichbaum, Krichbaum, T. P., A. Witzel +3
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics (astro-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #astro-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.astro-ph/9812050

9 pages, 4 figures, (PASP)Latex, to appear in: Proceedings of an International Workshop on the Galactic Center, held in Tucson, Arizona, September 7-11, 1998: `The Central Parsec of the Galaxy', eds. H. Falcke, A. Cotera, W. Duschl, F. Melia, and M. Riecke, ASP Conference Series

Abstract

We summarize previous VLBI observations of Sgr A* at millimeter wavelengths and present new results from VLBI observations at 86 and at 215 GHz. At 86 GHz the measured closure phase is close to zero, consistent with a point-like or symmetric structure of 190 +/- 30 micro-arcsec size. At 215 GHz we have detected Sgr A* with a signal-to-noise ratio of 6. This yields a tentative size estimate of 50 < theta < 190 micro-arcsec, which is larger than the scattering size of 20 micro-arcsec at this frequency. The intrinsic size of Sgr A* thus appears to be a few up to a few ten Schwarzschild radii.

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