A Geometric Determination of the Distance to the Galactic Center

By F. Eisenhauer, R. Schoedel, R. Genzel, T. Ott, M. Tecza, R. Abuter, A. Eckart, T. Alexander. 2003

303 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We report new astrometric and spectroscopic observations of the star S2 orbiting the massive black hole in the Galactic center that were taken at the ESO VLT with the adaptive optics-assisted, near-IR camera NAOS/CONICA and the near-IR integral field spectrometer SPIFFI. We use these data to determine all the orbital parameters of the star with high precision, including the Sun-Galactic center distance, which is a key parameter for calibrating stellar standard candles and an important rung in the extragalactic distance ladder. Our deduced value of R0 = 7.94 ± 0.42 kpc is the most accurate primary distance measurement to the center of the Milky Way and has minimal systematic uncertainties of astrophysical origin. It is in excellent agreement with other recent determinations of R0.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/09853757adcee9eae395ae10dac510935e2cdf34

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

Citations in the corpus

The Galaxy in Context: Structural, Kinematic, and Integrated Properties (2016, background): “…estimate of the distance to the SMBH comes from monitoring proper motions (PMs) and line-of-sight (LOS) velocities for stellar orbits near Sgr A∗ (Eisenhauer et al. 2003, Ghez et al. 2008, Gillessen et al. 2009b, Morris et al. 2012), in particular, for that of star S2, which has by now been…”
The Proper Motion of Sagittarius A*. II. The Mass of Sagittarius A* (2004, background): “Orbital solutions for stars near Sgr A* that combine proper motions and radial velocities have great potential to accomplish this (Eisenhauer et al. 2003; Ghez et al. 2003).”
Supermassive Black Holes in Galactic Nuclei: Past, Present and Future Research (2004, background): “Because of its proximity (8.0±0.4 kpc, Eisenhauer et al. 2003), the Galactic Center can be studied at a level of detail unimaginable in ms.tex; 2/02/2008; 14:25; p.19 20 any other galaxy.”
Dynamical Blueprints for Galaxies (2008, methodology): “More recently Eisenhauer et al. (2003) observed the star S2 in orbit about the Galaxy’s massive central black hole using the ESO VLT and found R0 ¼ 7:94 0:42 kpc. Sackett (1997) reviewed estimates of the radial scale length of the Galactic disk and found Rd ¼ 3:0 1 kpc.”
Black holes in astrophysics (2005, background): “Recently, high resolution infrared observations have enabled two independent groups to follow the orbits of individual stars around this object (Schödel et al. 2002; Eisenhauer et al. 2003; Ghez et al. 2003, 2004).”
THE MILKY WAY TOMOGRAPHY WITH SDSS. III. STELLAR KINEMATICS (2009, methodology): “The adopted value of R is motivated by geometrical measurements of the motions of stars around Sgr A∗, which yield R = 7.94 ± 0.42 kpc (Eisenhauer et al. 2003).”
AN IMPROVED DISTANCE AND MASS ESTIMATE FOR SGR A* FROM A MULTISTAR ORBIT ANALYSIS (2016, methodology): “In addition to the mass of the SMBH, stellar orbits with measured radial velocities have been used to determine the distance to the Galactic Center (Ro; Ghez et al. 2003; Eisenhauer et al. 2003).”
A geometric distance measurement to the Galactic center black hole with 0.3% uncertainty (2019, unknown): “The first measurement was in Eisenhauer et al. (2003), who reported R0 = 7940 ± 420 pc. Eisenhauer et al. (2005) updated this value to R0 = 7620 ± 320 pc. Ghez et al. (2008) reported R0 = 8400 ± 400 pc, and Gillessen et al. (2009) differed slightly with R0 = 8330 ± 350 pc.”
Measuring Distance and Properties of the Milky Way’s Central Supermassive Black Hole with Stellar Orbits (2008, methodology): “Another prior, which has been imposed in earlier orbital analyses of S0-2 for R0 (Eisenhauer et al. 2003, 2005), is on the black hole’s motion relative to the measurements’ reference frame.”
Globular Cluster System and Milky Way Properties Revisited (2005, methodology): “This value puts the Sun ≈0.8 kpc closer to the Galactic centre than either the best one adopted by Reid (1993) or the one derived by Eisenhauer et al. (2003).”
THE ORBIT OF THE STAR S2 AROUND SGR A* FROM VERY LARGE TELESCOPE AND KECK DATA (2009, methodology): “Together with radial velocity data, the astrometric data allow for a geometric determination of R0, the distance to the Galactic Center (Salim & Gould 1999; Eisenhauer et al. 2003).”
First simultaneous NIR/X-ray detection of a flare from Sgr A (2004, background): “At a distance to the Galactic Center of 8 kpc (Reid 1993,Eisenhauer et al. 2003) this corresponds to an angular diameter of 6.8×10−3 mas.”
Detection of the gravitational redshift in the orbit of the star S2 near the Galactic centre massive black hole (2018, methodology): “…were taken with the AO-assisted integral field spectrometer SINFONI at the VLT (Eisenhauer et al. 2003a; Bonnet et al. 2004), with five additional 2000-2003 slit-spectra from the AO imagers and spectrometers NIRC2 at Keck (see Ghez et al. 2003; Chu et al. 2018) and NACO (Eisenhauer et al. 2003b).”
DISCOVERY OF A SUPERLUMINAL Fe K ECHO AT THE GALACTIC CENTER: THE GLORIOUS PAST OF Sgr A* PRESERVED BY MOLECULAR CLOUDS (2010, background): “Sgr A*, the supermassive black hole (BH) at the center of the Milky Way, now radiates at a rate about 8 orders of magnitude lower than the Eddington luminosity for its estimated mass of MBH ∼4 ×106 M (Schödel et al. 2002; Eisenhauer et al. 2003; Ghez et al. 2003; 2005; Gillesen et al. 2009).”
Near-Infrared Properties of 24 Globular Clusters in the Galactic Bulge (2006, methodology): “Moreover, using our distance determinations and the (l, b) Galactic coordinates from H96, and assuming a distance R0 ¼ 8 kpc to the Galactic center (Eisenhauer et al. 2003), we also provide new estimates of the clusters’ distances from the Sun (d ) and from theGalactic center (RGC), and the…”
Polarimetry of near-infrared flares from Sagittarius A* (2006, background): “…(3.6 ± 0.3)× 106 M Massive Black Hole (MBH) at the center of the Milky Way at the position of the compact radio source SgrA* (Eisenhauer et al. 2005; Ghez et al. 2005; Eisenhauer et al. 2003; Schödel et al. 2003; Eckart et al. 2002; Schödel et al. 2002, for a recent review see Eckart et al. 2005).”
The spiral structure of our Milky Way Galaxy (2009, background): “More and more pieces of evidence of R0 = 8.0 kpc and Θ0 = 220 km s−1 have been found (Reid 1993; Ghez et al. 2008; Eisenhauer et al. 2003; Groenewegen et al. 2008; Gillessen et al. 2009).”
Three Year Wilkinson Microwave Anistropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Polarization Analysis (2006, methodology): “We take 8 kpc as the distance to the center of the Galaxy (Eisenhauer et al. 2003; Reid & Brunthaler 2005).”
SINFONI in the Galactic Center: Young Stars and Infrared Flares in the Central Light-Month (2005, methodology): “…used the new radial velocity measurements, in conjunction with our 2004 NACO data, the 1992–2003 SHARP/ NACO/SPIFFI data of Schödel et al. (2003) and Eisenhauer et al. (2003a), and the 2002 radial velocity measurement of S2 from Ghez et al. (2003), to obtain improved estimates of the…”