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American Astronomical Society, Astrophysical Journal, (439), p. 682, 1995

DOI: 10.1086/175207

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Infrared photometry of the black hole candidate Sagittarius A*

Journal article published in 1995 by Laird M. Close, Donald W. Jr. Mccarthy, Fulvio Melia ORCID
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Red circle
Preprint: archiving forbidden
Red circle
Postprint: archiving forbidden
Green circle
Published version: archiving allowed
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

An infrared source has been imaged within 0.2 +/- 0.3 arcseconds of the unique Galactic center radio source Sgr A* High angular resolution (averaged value of the Full Width at Half Maximum (FWHM) approximately 0.55 arcseconds) was achieved by rapid (approximately 50 Hz) real-time images motion compensation. The source's near-infrared magnitudes (K = 12.1 +/- 0.3, H = 13.7 +/- 0.3, and J = 16.6 +/- 0.4) are consistent with a hot object reddened by the local extinction A(sub v) approximately 27). At the 3 sigma level of confidence, a time series of 80 images limits the source variability to less than 50% on timescales from 3 to 30 minutes. The photometry is consistent with the emission from a simple accretion disk model for a approximately 1 x 10(exp 6) solar mass black hole. However, the fluxes are also consistent with a hot luminous (L approximately 10(exp 3.5) to 10(exp 4-6) solar luminosity) central cluster star positionally coincident with Sgr A*.