Testing General Relativity with Accretion-Flow Imaging of SgrA*
Author(s)
Johannsen, Tim; Wang, Carlos; Broderick, Avery E.; Loeb, Abraham; Psaltis, Dimitrios; Doeleman, Sheperd Samuel; Fish, Vincent L.; ... Show more Show less
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The Event Horizon Telescope is a global, very long baseline interferometer capable of probing potential deviations from the Kerr metric, which is believed to provide the unique description of astrophysical black holes. Here, we report an updated constraint on the quadrupolar deviation of Sagittarius A∗ within the context of a radiatively inefficient accretion flow model in a quasi-Kerr background. We also simulate near-future constraints obtainable by the forthcoming eight-station array and show that in this model already a one-day observation can measure the spin magnitude to within 0.005, the inclination to within 0.09°, the position angle to within 0.04°, and the quadrupolar deviation to within 0.005 at 3σ confidence. Thus, we are entering an era of high-precision strong gravity measurements.
Date issued
2018-06-26Department
Haystack Observatory; Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of PhysicsJournal
Physical Review Letters
Publisher
American Physical Society
Citation
Johannsen, Tim et al. “Testing General Relativity with Accretion-Flow Imaging of SgrA*.” Physical Review Letters 117, 9 (August 2016): 091101 © 2016 American Physical Society
Version: Final published version
ISSN
0031-9007
1079-7114