2004/01/31 by B. Aschenbach, N. Grosso, D. Porquet +1 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20035883
published as Astron.Astrophys. 417 (2004) 71-78 · In this revised version (accepted by the A&A Editor, 9 pages), we use the formula for the Lense-Thirring precession given by Merloni et al. (1999), which is not restricted to the weak-field limit. Thereby we now obtain a unique solution for the mass and the angular momentum of the supermassive black hole
arxiv created 2004/02/16 · openalex publication_date 2004/03/15 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
We have analysed the light curve of the two brightest X-ray flares from the Galactic Center black hole, one flare observed by XMM-Newton on October 3, 2002 (Porquet et al. [CITE]), and the other flare observed by Chandra on October 26, 2000 (Baganoff et al. [CITE]). The power density spectra show five distinct peaks at periods of ~100 s, 219 s, 700 s, 1150 s, and 2250 s common to both observations within their estimated measurement uncertainties. The power density spectrum of the recently reported infrared flare of June 16, 2003 (Genzel et al. [CITE]) shows distinct peaks at two, if not three, periods (including the s infrared period), which are consistent with the X-ray periods. The remaining two periods could not be covered by the infrared measurements. Each period can be identified with one of the characteristic gravitational cyclic modes associated with accretion disks, i.e. either Lense-Thirring precession, Kepler orbital motion and the vertical and radial epicyclic oscillation modes, in such a way that a consistent value for the black hole mass of and the angular momentum is obtained. The available data on derived from studies of the orbital motion of the S2 (S0-2) star (Schödel et al. [CITE]; Ghez et al. [CITE]) agree with our findings. Finally we discuss some implications of the fairly high value for the angular momentum.