Testing the General Relativistic “No-Hair” Theorems Using the Galactic Center Black Hole Sagittarius A*

By C. Will. 2007

203 citations recorded by the source corpus.

If a class of stars orbits the central black hole in our galaxy in short-period (~0.1 yr), high-eccentricity (~0.9) orbits, they will experience precessions of their orbital planes induced by both relativistic frame dragging and the quadrupolar gravity of the hole, at levels that could be as large as 10 μas per year, if the black hole is rotating faster than half of its maximum rotation rate. Astrometric observations of the orbits of at least two such stars can in principle lead to a determination of the angular momentum vector of the black hole and its quadrupole moment Q2. This could lead to a test of the general relativistic no-hair theorems, which demand that Q2 = − J2/M. Future high-precision adaptive infrared optics instruments may make such a fundamental test of the black hole paradigm possible.

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

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3f72323fa5a149de57a5dab4b715405c07fb8b01

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. T. Johannsen
2. T. Alexander
3. R. Genzel
4. Cosimo Bambi
5. F. Eisenhauer
6. A. Ghez
7. T. Ott
8. A. Eckart

In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

1. T. Alexander
2. R. Genzel
3. T. Ott
4. S. Gillessen
5. T. Johannsen
6. A. Ghez
7. F. Eisenhauer
8. A. Eckart

Citations in the corpus

• Detection of the gravitational redshift in the orbit of the star S2 near the Galactic centre massive black hole (2018, background): “& Petterson 1975; Will 2008): ∆ω = 2 ξ ( RS a(1 − e2) )3/2 , (A.3) where ξ ≤ 1 is the dimensionless spin parameter of a Kerr black hole.”
• Stellar Dynamics and Stellar Phenomena Near a Massive Black Hole (2017, methodology): “Relativistic precession of stars on very short period orbits could be detected by the adaptive optics-assisted IR interferometer GRAVITY (Eisenhauer et al. 2011) and test the “no-hair” theorem (Will 2008).”
• TESTING THE NO-HAIR THEOREM WITH OBSERVATIONS IN THE ELECTROMAGNETIC SPECTRUM. IV. RELATIVISTICALLY BROADENED IRON LINES (2012, background): “…Hughes 2010; Vigeland et al. 2011; Gair & Yunes 2011; Rodriguez et al. 2012) and from electromagnetic observations of stars orbiting around Sgr A* (Will 2008; Merritt et al. 2010; Laleh & Will 2011), of pulsar black-hole binaries (Wex & Kopeikin 1999; Liu et al. 2012), as well as of the quasar…”
• TESTING THE NO-HAIR THEOREM WITH EVENT HORIZON TELESCOPE OBSERVATIONS OF SAGITTARIUS A* (2013, background): “Examples of the former include high-precision studies of stellar orbital dynamics around Sgr A* (Will 2008; Merritt et al. 201) and timing measurements of pulsar-black hole binaries (Wex & Kopeikin 1999; Liu et al. 2012), which have taken on new importance following the discovery of a pulsar in the…”
• PHOTON RINGS AROUND KERR AND KERR-LIKE BLACK HOLES (2013, background): “The presence of the spin of the black hole as well as its quadrupole moment introduces torques on stars in close orbits around Sgr A* which cause their orbital planes to precess (Will 2008).”
• TESTING THE NO-HAIR THEOREM WITH OBSERVATIONS IN THE ELECTROMAGNETIC SPECTRUM. II. BLACK HOLE IMAGES (2010, background): “Perhaps more importantly, the same observations may lead in the future to an independent measurement of the spin and orientation of the black hole, as well as to a complementary test of the no-hair theorem (Will 2008; Merritt et al. 2010).”
• IMPROVING GALACTIC CENTER ASTROMETRY BY REDUCING THE EFFECTS OF GEOMETRIC DISTORTION (2010, background): “…radii, and, more ambitiously, measurements of postNewtonian effects in the orbits of short-period stars (e.g., Jaroszyński 1998, 1999; Salim & Gould 1999; Fragile & Mathews 2000; Rubilar & Eckart 2001; Weinberg et al. 2005; Zucker & Alexander 2007; Kraniotis 2007; Nucita et al. 2007; Will 2008).”
• Measuring Distance and Properties of the Milky Way’s Central Supermassive Black Hole with Stellar Orbits (2008, background): “…and kinematics, the distance to the Galactic center (R0), and, more ambitiously, to measure postNewtonian effects has been anticipated (Jaroszyński1998,1999; Salim & Gould1999; Fragile &Mathews 2000; Rubilar & Eckart 2001; Weinberg et al. 2005; Zucker & Alexander 2007; Kraniotis 2007; Will 2008).”
• Detection of the Schwarzschild precession in the orbit of the star S2 near the Galactic centre massive black hole (2020, methodology): “precession We uses the post-Newtonian limit for the equation of motion presented in Will (2008), Eq.”