Reconstruction of Stellar Orbits Close to Sagittarius A*: Possibilities for Testing General Relativity

1999/04/30 by P. C. Fragile, P. Chris Fragile, Grant J. Mathews +1 · 6 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #History and Developments in Astronomy #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph #gr-qc

paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/309495

published as Astrophys.J. 542 (2000) 328-333 · 20 pages, 5 figures submitted to Astrophysical Journal, substantial changes and additions based on referee's comments

arxiv created 2000/05/10 · openalex publication_date 2000/10/10 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01

Abstract

We have reconstructed possible orbits for a collection of stars located within 0 5 of Sgr A*. These orbits are constrained by observed stellar positions and angular proper motions. The construction of such orbits serves as a baseline from which to search for possible deviations due to the unseen mass distribution in the central 1000 AU of the Galaxy. We also discuss the likelihood that some of these stars may eventually exhibit detectable relativistic effects, allowing for interesting tests of general relativity around the 2.6 × 10 6 M ☉ central object.

Citations

• Near‐Infrared Microlensing of Stars by the Supermassive Black Hole in the Galactic Center
• Prospects for the Determination of Star Orbits near the Galactic Center

Cited by

• Testing properties of the Galactic center black hole using stellar orbits
• Precise analytic treatment of Kerr and Kerr-(anti) de Sitter black holes as gravitational lenses
• Stellar Dynamics at the Galactic Center with an Extremely Large Telescope
• Perturbed stellar motions around the rotating black hole in SgrA*for a generic orientation of its spin axis
• Measuring Distance and Properties of the Milky Way’s Central Supermassive Black Hole with Stellar Orbits
• Stellar orbits near Sagittarius A