Intra-day Variation of Sagittarius A* at Short Millimeter Wavelengths

Atsushi Miyazaki1, Takahiro Tsutsumi2, Masato Tsuboi1


(1) Nobeyama Radio Observatory National Astronomical Observatory of Japan,, Minamimaki, Minamisaku, Nagano 384-1305, Japan
(2) National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, 2-21-1 Osawa, Mitaka, Tokyo 181-8588, Japan

Paper: ApJL 2004 accepted

EPrint Server: astro-ph/0407252


Abstract:

We have performed the monitoring observations of flux density of Sagittarius A* at short millimeter wavelengths (100 and 140 GHz bands) on seven years in the period from 1996 to 2003 using the Nobeyama Millimeter Array (NMA). We found intra-day variation of Sgr A* in March 2000 flare. The flux density at the peak of the flares increases 100-200% at 100 GHz and 200-400% at 140 GHz (Delta S/S), respectively. The two-fold increase timescale of the flare is estimated to be about 1.5 hours at 140 GHz. The intra-day variation at mm-wavelengths has similar increase timescale as those in the X-ray and infrared flares but has smaller amplitude. This short timescale variability suggests that the physical size of the emitting region is smaller than 12 AU ( 150 Rs). The decay timescale of the flare was at most 24 hours. Such a light curve with rapid increase and slow decay is similar to that often observed in outburst phenomena with ejections.


Preprints available from the authors at amiya@nro.nao.ac.jp , or the raw TeX (no figures) if you click here.

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