ALMA View of the Galactic Center Mini-spiral: Ionized Gas Flows around Sagittarius A* [GA]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1608.08714


We have performed the observation of the “Galactic Center Mini-spiral(GCMS)” in H42alpha recombination line as a part of the first large-scale mosaic observation in the Sagittarius A complex using Atacama Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array (ALMA). We revealed the kinematics of the ionized gas streamers of the GCMS. Especially we found that the streamer corresponding to the Bar of the GCMS has a Keplerian orbit with high eccentricity which is independent from the Keplerian orbits of the other streamers of the GCMS. The periastron is probably located within the Bondi accretion radius derived from X-ray observation. In addition, we estimated the LTE electron temperature in the sub-structures of the GCMS from the line-continuum flux density ratio. The electron temperatures are in the range of T* e=(6-13)x10^3 K. We confirmed the previously claimed tendency that the electron temperatures increase toward Sgr A*. We also found that the electron temperature at the positive velocity end of the Bar is twice as high as that at the negative velocity end. This may be caused by the positional difference on the Keplarian orbit. There is a good positional correlation between the protostar candidates detected by JVLA at 34 GHz and the ionized gas streamer found by our H42alpha recombination line observation. This suggests that the candidates have been formed in the streamer and they were brought to near Sgr A* as the streamer falls.

Read this paper on arXiv…

M. Tsuboi, Y. Kitamura, K. Uehara, et. al.
Thu, 1 Sep 16
32/74

Comments: 25 pages, 8 figures, submitted to APJ