4.6 Article

The flare activity of Sagittarius A -: New coordinated mm to X-ray observations

Journal

ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS
Volume 450, Issue 2, Pages 535-555

Publisher

EDP SCIENCES S A
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20054418

Keywords

black hole physics; X-rays : general; infrared : general; accretion, accretion disks; Galaxy : center; Galaxy : nucleus

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Context. We report new simultaneous near-infrared/sub-millimeter/X-ray observations of the SgrA* counterpart associated with the massive 3-4 x 10(6) M-circle dot black hole at the Galactic Center. Aims. We investigate the physical processes responsible for the variable emission from SgrA*. Methods. The observations have been carried out using the NACO adaptive optics (AO) instrument at the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope(star) and the ACIS-I instrument aboard the Chandra X-ray Observatory as well as the Submillimeter Array SMA(star star) on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, and the Very Large Array(star star star) in New Mexico. Results. We detected one moderately bright flare event in the X-ray domain and 5 events at infrared wavelengths. The X-ray flare had an excess 2-8 keV luminosity of about 33 x 10(33) erg/s. The duration of this flare was completely covered in the infrared and it was detected as a simultaneous NIR event with a time lag of <= 10 min. Simultaneous infrared/X-ray observations are available for 4 flares. All simultaneously covered flares, combined with the flare covered in 2003, indicate that the time-lag between the NIR and X-ray flare emission is very small and in agreement with a synchronous evolution. There are no simultaneous flare detections between the NIR/X-ray data and the VLA and SMA data. The excess flux densities detected in the radio and sub-millimeter domain may be linked with the flare activity observed at shorter wavelengths. Conclusions. We find that the flaring state can be explained with a synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) model involving up-scattered submillimeter photons from a compact source component. This model allows for NIR flux density contributions from both the synchrotron and SSC mechanisms. Indications for an exponential cutoff the NIR/MIR synchrotron spectrum allow for a straightforward explanation of the variable and red spectral indices of NIR flares.

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