2001/09/30 by S. Markoff, Sera Markoff, Heino Falcke +5 · 12 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Accretion (finance) #Amplitude #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Earth Systems and Cosmic Evolution #Electron #Flare #Galactic Center #Lorentz factor #Particle acceleration #Supermassive black hole #Synchrotron radiation #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20011346
Astronomy & Astrophysics Letters, in press, 4 pages, 3 figures, also available at http://www.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de/staff/hfalcke/publications.html#sgrxvar, final version with minor modifications, clearer figure
arxiv created 2001/10/25 · openalex publication_date 2001/11/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The X-ray mission Chandra has observed a dramatic X-ray flare -a brightening by a factor of 50 for only three hours -from Sgr A*, the Galactic Center supermassive black hole. Sgr A* has never shown variability of this amplitude in the radio and we therefore argue that a jump of this order in the accretion rate does not seem the likely cause. Based on our model for jet-dominated emission in the quiescent state of Sgr A*, we suggest that the flare is a consequence of extra electron heating near the black hole. This can either lead to direct heating of thermal electrons to K and significantly increased synchrotron-self Compton emission, or result from non-thermal particle acceleration with increased synchrotron radiation and electron Lorentz factors up to . While the former scenario is currently favored by the data, simultaneous VLBI, submm, mid-infrared and X-ray observations should ultimately be able to distinguish between the two cases.