Near-infrared flares from accreting gas around the supermassive black hole at the Galactic Centre
Open accessAbstract
Recent measurements of stellar orbits provide compelling evidence that the compact radio source Sagittarius A* (refs 4, 5) at the Galactic Centre is a 3.6-million-solar-mass black hole. Sgr A* is remarkably faint in all wavebands other than the radio region, however, which challenges current theories of matter accretion and radiation surrounding black holes. The black hole's rotation rate is not known, and therefore neither is the structure of space-time around it. Here we report high-resolution infrared observations of Sgr A* that reveal 'quiescent' emission and several flares. The infrared emission originates from within a few milliarcseconds of the black hole, and traces very energetic electrons or moderately hot gas within the innermost accretion region. Two flares exhibit a 17-minute quasi-periodic variability. If the periodicity arises from relativistic modulation of orbiting gas, the emission must come from just outside the event horizon, and the black hole must be rotating at about half of the maximum possible rate.
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Sgr A* exhibits broadband variability on timescales of minutes to hours.
“Sgr A * exhibits broadband variability on timescales of minutes to hours”
From First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope Results. IV. Variability, Morphology, and Black Hole Mass (2022) · cites this paper as Genzel et al. 2003
The paper reports near-infrared flares lasting 30–85 minutes, with rise and decay times of 2–5 minutes (p. 1), and says observed X-ray flares have similar durations and timescales (p. 2). It does not establish minutes-to-hours variability across the full broadband range: it says almost all millimetre/submillimetre variations occur over days to hundreds of days, with one one-hour exception (p. 2). (LLM, conf=0.85)
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MONITORING STELLAR ORBITS AROUND THE MASSIVE BLACK HOLE IN THE GALACTIC CENTER
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“Consistent with this expectation, Sgr A* exhibits broadband variability on timescales of minutes to hours (e.g., Genzel et al. 2003; Ghez et al. 2004; Fish et al. 2011; Neilsen et al. 2013; Goddi et al. 2021; Wielgus et al. 2022).”
BackgroundStellar processes near the massive black hole in the Galactic center
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FOSSIL IMPRINT OF A POWERFUL FLARE AT THE GALACTIC CENTER ALONG THE MAGELLANIC STREAM
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- Authors
- Genzel, R., Schödel, R., Ott, T., Eckart, A., Alexander, T., Lacombe, F., Rouan, D., & Aschenbach, B.
- Affiliations
- Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (DE)
- University of Cologne (DE)
- Observatoire de Paris (FR)
- Corresponding author
- Genzel, R.
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2003-10
- Volume
- 425
- Issue
- 6961
- Pages
- 934-937
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- OpenAlex
- W2031178783
- Cited by
- 688
- References
- 35
- Citations by year
- 2026: 23 · 2025: 32 · 2024: 21 · 2023: 20 · 2022: 26 · 2021: 19 · 2020: 28 · 2019: 24 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 18 · 2016: 28 · 2015: 31 · 2014: 27 · 2013: 15 · 2012: 28
- FWCI
- 26.82
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- arxiv.org
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- HAL (submittedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (submittedVersion)
- Max Planck Digital Library (submittedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Nuclear and High Energy Physics › Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Nuclear and High Energy Physics › Black Holes and Theoretical Physics
- Keywords
- Sgr A*, supermassive black holes, Galactic Center, near-infrared flares, quiescent emission, accretion, black hole spin, relativistic effects, quasi-periodic variability, hot gas, relativistic electrons, event horizon
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