The Supermassive Black Hole at the Galactic Center

Fulvio Melia(1), Heino Falcke(2)


(1) Physics Department and Steward Observatory, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721
(2) Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Auf dem Hügel 69, Bonn D-53121, Germany

Paper: ARA&A, Vol. 39, in press

Weblink: http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/staff/hfalcke/publications.html#gcreview

EPrint Server: astro-ph/0106162


Abstract:

The inner few parsecs at the Galactic Center have come under intense scrutiny in recent years, in part due to the exciting broad-band observations of this region, but also because of the growing interest from theorists motivated to study the physics of black hole accretion, magnetized gas dynamics and unusual star formation. The Galactic Center is now known to contain arguably the most compelling supermassive black hole candidate, weighing in at a little over 2.6 million suns. Its interaction with the nearby environment, comprised of clusters of evolved and young stars, a molecular dusty ring, ionized gas streamers, diffuse hot gas, and a hypernova remnant, is providing a wealth of accretion phenomenology and high-energy processes for detailed modeling. In this review, we summarize the latest observational results, and focus on the physical interpretation of the most intriguing object in this region - the compact radio source Sgr A*, thought to be the radiative manifestation of the supermassive black hole.


Preprints available from the authors at hfalcke@sun184.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de , or the raw TeX (no figures) if you click here.

Back to the gcnews home-page.