1208.1129 (A. Eckart et al.)

Beating the confusion limit: The necessity of high angular resolution for probing the physics of Sagittarius A* and its environment: Opportunities for LINC-NIRVANA (LBT), GRAVITY (VLTI) and and METIS (E-ELT)    [PDF]

A. Eckart, N. Sabha, G. Witzel, C. Straubmeier, B. Shahzamanian, M. Valencia-S., M. Garcia-Marin, M. Horrobin, L. Moser, J. Zuther, S. Fischer, C. Rauch, S. Rost, C. Iserlohe, S. Yazici, S. Smajic, M. Wiest, C. Araujo-Hauck, I. Wank

The super-massive 4 million solar mass black hole (SMBH) SgrA* shows variable emission from the millimeter to the X-ray domain. A detailed analysis of the infrared light curves allows us to address the accretion phenomenon in a statistical way. The analysis shows that the near-infrared flux density excursions are dominated by a single state power law, with the low states of SgrA* limited by confusion through the unresolved stellar background. We show that for 8-10m class telescopes blending effects along the line of sight will result in artificial compact star-like objects of 0.5-1 mJy that last for about 3-4 years. We discuss how the imaging capabilities of GRAVITY at the VLTI, LINC-NIRVANA at the LBT and METIS at the E-ELT will contribute to the investigation of the low variability states of SgrA*.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1208.1129