Journal
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MODERN PHYSICS D
Volume 18, Issue 6, Pages 889-910Publisher
WORLD SCIENTIFIC PUBL CO PTE LTD
DOI: 10.1142/S0218271809014820
Keywords
Supermassive black hole; Sgr A*; galactic center
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This review outlines the observations that now provide an overwhelming scientific case that the center of the Milky Way harbors a supermassive black hole. Observations at infrared wavelength trace stars that orbit about a common focal position and require a central mass (M) of 4 x 10(6) M-circle dot within a radius of 100 AU. Orbital speeds have been observed to exceed 5,000 km s(-1). At the focal position there is an extremely compact radio source (Sgr A*), whose apparent size is near the Schwarzschild radius (2GM/c(2)). This radio source is motionless at the similar to 1 km s(-1) level at the dynamical center of the Galaxy. The mass density required by these observations is now approaching the ultimate limit of a supermassive black hole within the last stable orbit for matter near the event horizon.
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