The Galactic Center: a laboratory for AGN?     

Peter G. Mezger  Wolfgang J. Duschl  Robert Zylka 《Astronomy and Astrophysics Review》1996,7(4):289-388

Summary. This paper reviews the physical state of stars and Interstellar Matter in the Galactic Bulge (radius kpc from the dynamical center of the Galaxy), in the Nuclear Bulge (kpc) and in the Sgr A Radio and GMC Complex, i.e. the central \,pc of our Galaxy. The Galactic Bulge is devoid of cold Interstellar Matter and consists mainly of old stars, while the Nuclear Bulge accounts for of the mass of all of the Interstellar Matter in the Galaxy. A similar ratio holds for the formation rate of medium and high mass stars in Bulge and Disk. The metal abundance of the Interstellar Matter in the Galactic Bulge is found to be . The H-to-CO conversion factors to be applied to molecular gas in the Central Region are by factors 3 (Arimoto et al. 1996) to 10 (Sodroski et al. 1995) lower than in the solar vicinity. Hence, most H masses derived for the Central Region appear to be considerably overestimated. The Nuclear Bulge is pervaded by a thermal plasma (K) which is responsible for the diffuse free-free emission. Lyman continuum photon and dust IR luminosity of the Nuclear Bulge again account for of the respective total luminosities of the Galaxy. Magnetic fields in the Nuclear Bulge are strong (up to mG) as compared with the Galactic Disk (a few tens of G). The field lines are oriented parallel to the galactic plane inside giant molecular clouds and perpendicular to the plane in the intercloud medium. The compact source Sgr A* is close to or at the dynamical center of the Galaxy. Its radio spectrum with a high frequency cut-off at GHz, a low frequency turnover at GHz and a flux density dependence in between can be explained by synchrotron emission from quasi-monoenergetic relativistic electrons. Due to an extinction between Sun and Galactic Center corresponding to , an intrinsic weakness of this source in the near infrared, and a strong background emission from warm dust there are only upper limits available for the flux density of Sgr A* in the far, mid and near infrared and X-ray regime. The size of Sgr A* in the radio regime is cm, its dereddened K-band flux density is mJy, its luminosity has upper limits of (if radiation comes from an Accretion Disk) and (if black-body radiation from an object with a single temperature of K is assumed). If anyone of the soft X-ray sources detected by ROSAT actually coincides with Sgr A*, its X-ray luminosity would be less than a few . With a dark mass of Sgr A* is the best candidate for a starving black hole, although there are no observational indications for the presence of a (Standard) Accretion Disk. While the radio/IR spectrum of Sgr A* is purely nonthermal, the spectrum integrated over the central parsec resembles that of a Seyfert galaxy. Sgr A* is embedded in the Hii region Sgr A West with part of the ionized gas forming a minispiral. Sgr A West is surrounded by the Circum Nuclear Disk, an irregular shaped assembly of molecular gas which extends from pc and rotates around the Galactic Center with an estimated dynamical time scale of \,yr. The total luminosity of of the central parsec is due to the radiation of early-type stars of which have now been directly identified as luminous blue supergiants. It is still debated, however, if these stars can also account for all of the ionization of Sgr A West. In addition, the central parsec contains red giants, AGB stars, and a few super giants of which the brightest are now identified by direct imaging. These stars – together with a few million low mass main sequence stars – account for the bulk of the 2.2\,m emission. The spatial distributions of the three stellar populations in the central pc are remarkably different. Sgr A* is – along the line-of-sight – presumably located close to the center of the Hii region Sgr A West, which in turn is located in front of the extended (pc) synchrotron source Sgr A East, which appears to be the remnant of a gigantic explosion (of the order of the energy of a single supernova explosion) which took place yr ago inside the GMC Sgr A East Core. X-ray observations show within pc a pervasive hot (keV) plasma of expansion age of yr. Both phenomena – as well as the formation of the Circum Nuclear Disk – may have the same origin. Influx of material is observed within the Nuclear Bulge on all distance scales. In the Nuclear Bulge (pc) as well as in the Circum Nuclear Disk (pc) inflow towards the Galactic Center occurs primarily in the galactic plane and amounts to a few . The accretion rate into the central Black Hole, deduced from the luminosity of Sgr A*, however, appears to be lower by at least five orders of magnitude (assuming standard disk accretion). But in an equilibrium state only part of the infalling mass which is not accreted by the Black Hole can be consumed by star formation. A mass inflow rate varying with time is a more natural explanation. Comparing the physical state of the Center of our Galaxy with that of Active Galactic Nuclei derived from observations and modelling, we find that most of the basic characteristics of an AGN are also present in the Galactic Center. Lacking are, however, both the evidence for a standard Accretion Disk and a hard UV spectrum with accompanying high excitation emission lines in the Galactic Center which are characteristic for AGN. The luminosity of the central parsec, , amounts to only of the total luminosity of the Galaxy of . Seen from a distance of M31 (kpc) with an angular resolution of (corresponding to a linear size of pc) the Center of our Galaxy would appear as a mildly active nucleus with some starburst activity and would probably be classified as a weak Seyfert galaxy. The synchrotron spectrum of Sgr A*, however, would be completely masked by reprocessed stellar light (i.e. free-free and dust emission). Received: October 21, 1996  相似文献   

Coordinated Observations of Comet Hale–Bopp between 32 and 860 GHz     

Wink  J. E.  Altenhoff  W. J.  Bieging  J.  Butler  B.  Butner  H.  Haslam  C.G.T.  Kreysa  E.  Martin  R.  Mauersberger  R.  McMullin  J.  Muders  D.  Peters  W.  Schmidt  J.  Schraml  J. B.  Sievers  A.  Stumpff  P.  Von Kapp-Herr  A.  Thum  C.  Zylka  R. 《Earth, Moon, and Planets》1997,77(3):165-165

Earth, Moon, and Planets - The concept of simultaneous multifrequency continuum observations, successfully tested on Comet Hyakutake, was applied to Comet Hale-Bopp, using the Heinrich Hertz...  相似文献   

    

J. E. Wink  W. J. Altenhoff  J. Bieging  B. Butler  H. Butner  C.G.T. Haslam  E. Kreysa  R. Martin  R. Mauersberger  J. McMullin  D. Muders  W. Peters  J. Schmidt  J. B. Schraml  A. Sievers  P. Stumpff  A. Von Kapp-Herr  C. Thum  R. Zylka 《Earth, Moon, and Planets》1997,77(3):165

The concept of simultaneous multifrequency continuum observations, successfully tested on Comet Hyakutake, was applied to Comet Hale-Bopp, using the Heinrich Hertz Submillimeter Telescope (HHT) with the four color bolometer between 250 and 870 GHz, the IRAM 30m telescope at 240 Ghz, the MPIfR 100-m telescope at 32 GHz, and the IRAM interferometer near 90 and 240 GHz. Near-simultaneous measurements were done between February 15 and April 26, 1997, mainly concentrated in mid March shortly before perigee of the comet. The measurements gave the following preliminary results: Interferometer detection of the nuclear thermal emission. If the signal at the longest interferometer spacing of 170 mis due to thermal emission from the nucleus only, its equivalent diameter is ∼49 km. If, however, this signal contains a contribution from a strongly centrally peaked halo distribution(e.g., r⁻² density variation) the diameter may be as low as 35 km. The emission found interferometrically was always 5″ north and 0.1 sec east from the position predicted by Yeoman's solution 55.The comparison of the interferometric continuum emission with the simultanously obtained molecular line observations (reported on this conference) shows the origin of the strongest line emission concentrated on the nucleus. The 30-m observations show a radio halo with a gaussian FWHP of ∼11, corresponding to a diameter of 11000 km at geocentric distance of 1.2 a.u. A spectral index of ∼3.0 for the total signal, which may indicate a smaller mean particle size than for Hyakutake. Assuming an average cometary density of 0.5 gcm⁻³, the mass contained in the nucleus is ∼1$#x2013;3 10¹⁹ g and 10¹² g in the particle halo. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.  相似文献   

Millimetre and submillimetre observations of high-mass star forming cores     

R. Zylka 《Astrophysics and Space Science》1995,224(1-2):189-198

I summarize recent millimetre and submillimetre observations of cloud cores where massive star formation is currently taking place. The first systematic continuum surveys in this wavelength range obtained with single dish telescopes and high-resolution data of NGC 2024 and W51A obtained with the Plateau de Bure interferometer are presented in more detail. Also given is a discussion of observing methods and some of the difficulties involved with the observations.  相似文献