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Cited by 827Astrophysical Phenomena and ObservationsStellar, planetary, and galactic studiesAstronomy and Astrophysical Research

A geometric distance measurement to the Galactic center black hole with 0.3% uncertainty

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The GRAVITY Collaboration, Abuter, R., Amorim, A., Bauböck, M., Berger, J. P., Bonnet, H., Brandner, W., Clénet, Y. +47 more·2019·Astronomy & Astrophysics
DOI 10.1051/0004-6361/201935656
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Abstract

We present a 0.16% precise and 0.27% accurate determination of R 0 , the distance to the Galactic center. Our measurement uses the star S2 on its 16-year orbit around the massive black hole Sgr A* that we followed astrometrically and spectroscopically for 27 years. Since 2017, we added near-infrared interferometry with the VLTI beam combiner GRAVITY, yielding a direct measurement of the separation vector between S2 and Sgr A* with an accuracy as good as 20 μ as in the best cases. S2 passed the pericenter of its highly eccentric orbit in May 2018, and we followed the passage with dense sampling throughout the year. Together with our spectroscopy, in the best cases with an error of 7 km s −1 , this yields a geometric distance estimate of R 0 = 8178 ± 13 stat. ± 22 sys. pc. This work updates our previous publication, in which we reported the first detection of the gravitational redshift in the S2 data. The redshift term is now detected with a significance level of 20 σ with f redshift = 1.04 ± 0.05.

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  • Each of the simulations from Paper V was produced assuming a mass of M = 4.14 × 10^6 M_e and a distance of 8.127 kpc, corresponding to an angular gravitational radius of θg = 5.03 μas.

    “Each of the simulations from Paper V was produced assuming a mass of M = 4.14 × 10 6 M e and a distance of 8.127 kpc ( Do et al. 2019; Gravity Collaboration et al. 2019 ) , corresponding to an angular gravitational radius of θ g = 5.03 μ as.”

    From First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope Results. IV. Variability, Morphology, and Black Hole Mass (2022) · cites this paper as Gravity Collaboration et al. 2019

    Section 4.2 reports a Galactic-center distance of 8178 ± 13 (stat.) ± 22 (sys.) pc, not the cited 8127 pc. Table 1 gives best-fit masses of 4.148–4.154 × 10^6 solar masses, rather than 4.14 × 10^6. The paper does not establish what assumptions the citing authors used for their simulations. (LLM, conf=0.84)

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Authors
The GRAVITY Collaboration, Abuter, R., Amorim, A., Bauböck, M., Berger, J. P., Bonnet, H., Brandner, W., Clénet, Y., Coudé du Foresto, V., de Zeeuw, P. T., Dexter, J., Duvert, G., Eckart, A., Eisenhauer, F., Förster Schreiber, N. M., Garcia, P., Gao, F., Gendron, E., Genzel, R., Gerhard, O., Gillessen, S., Habibi, M., Haubois, X., Henning, T., Hippler, S., Horrobin, M., Jiménez-Rosales, A., Jocou, L., Kervella, P., Lacour, S., Lapeyrère, V., Le Bouquin, J.-B., Léna, P., Ott, T., Paumard, T., Perraut, K., Perrin, G., Pfuhl, O., Rabien, S., Rodriguez Coira, G., Rousset, G., Scheithauer, S., Sternberg, A., Straub, O., Straubmeier, C., Sturm, E., Tacconi, L. J., Vincent, F., von Fellenberg, S., Waisberg, I., Widmann, F., Wieprecht, E., Wiezorrek, E., Woillez, J., & Yazici, S.
Affiliations
  • European Southern Observatory (DE)
  • University of Lisbon (PT)
  • Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (DE)
  • Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
  • Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (DE)
  • University of Cologne (DE)
  • Universidade do Porto (PT)
  • European Southern Observatory (CL)
  • Tel Aviv University (IL)
ORCID
Venue
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Publisher
EDP Sciences
Published
2019-05
Volume
625
Pages
L10
ISSN
  • 0004-6361 (ISSN-L)
  • 1432-0746
DOI
10.1051/0004-6361/201935656
OpenAlex
W2950494852
Cited by
827
References
47
Citations by year
2026: 83 · 2025: 118 · 2024: 123 · 2023: 91 · 2022: 140 · 2021: 144 · 2020: 99 · 2019: 28 · 2017: 1
FWCI
54.85
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Astronomy and Astrophysics (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
  • HAL (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • Leiden Repository (Leiden University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
  • Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • arXiv (Cornell University)
Funders
  • Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung
  • Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
  • Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung
  • Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
  • Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
  • Observatoire de Paris, Université de Recherche Paris Sciences et Lettres
  • Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (UID/FIS/00099/2013)
  • FP7 Ideas: European Research Council (610058, 306311)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations
  • Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
  • Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Instrumentation › Astronomy and Astrophysical Research
Keywords
galactocentric distance, Sgr A*, S2 star, Schwarzschild radius, gravitational redshift, near-infrared interferometry, GRAVITY instrument, astrometry, stellar orbits, black hole mass, pericenter passage

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