2003/11/30 by G. Belanger, G. Blanger, A. Goldwurm +18 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/381738
published as Astrophys.J. 601 (2004) L163-L166 · 4 pages, 2 figures
openalex publication_date 2004/01/23 · arxiv created 2004/06/22 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
This Letter presents the first results of an observational campaign to study the Galactic center with INTEGRAL , the International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory . Mosaicked images were constructed using data obtained with ISGRI, the soft gamma-ray instrument of the coded aperture IBIS imager, in the energy ranges 20-40 and 40-100 keV. These give a yet unseen view of the high-energy sources of this region in hard X-rays and gamma rays with an angular resolution of 12' (FWHM). We report on the discovery of a source, IGR J1745.6-2901, coincident with the Galactic nucleus Sgr A* to within 0 9. Located at R.A. = 17 h 45 m 38 5 (J2000.0), decl. = -29 ° 01'15'' (J2000.0), the source is visible up to about 100 keV with a 20-100 keV luminosity at 8 kpc of (2.89 ± 0.41) × 10 35 ergs s -1 . Although the new INTEGRAL source cannot unequivocally be associated to the Galactic nucleus, this is the first report of significant hard X-ray emission from within the inner 10' of the Galaxy and a contribution from the Galactic supermassive black hole itself cannot be excluded.