Prospects for the Determination of Star Orbits Near the Galactic Center

We simulate the observations of proper motion of stars very close to the Galactic Center. We show that the speckle interferometry done with the Keck II telescope is accurate enough to obtain orbital parameters for stars with the period P about 10 y during 10 seasons of astrometric observations made once a year. The determination of a single orbit will give central mass estimate with the typical uncertainty of the existing mass determinations based on velocity dispersion measurements. A much higher precision orbits will be measured in several years when Keck Interferometer becomes operational, and fainter stars are discovered even closer to Sgr A*. Astrometry alone will provide accurate determination of the ratio: M/D^3, where M is the black hole mass and D is the distance to the Galactic Center. If spectroscopic orbits of the stars are also measured then both: M and D will be precisely determined.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, accepted by Ap

Clockwise Stellar Disk and the Dark Mass in the Galactic Center

Two disks of young stars have recently been discovered in the Galactic Center. The disks are rotating in the gravitational field of the central black hole at radii r=0.1-0.3 pc and thus open a new opportunity to measure the central mass. We find that the observed motion of stars in the clockwise disk implies M=4.3+/-0.5 million solar masses for the fiducial distance to the Galactic Center R_0=8 kpc and derive the scaling of M with R_0. As a tool for our estimate we use orbital roulette, a recently developed method. The method reconstructs the three-dimensional orbits of the disk stars and checks the randomness of their orbital phases. We also estimate the three-dimensional positions and orbital eccentricities of the clockwise-disk stars.Comment: Comments: 16 pages, 5 figures, ApJ, in pres

Sgr A* ``Visual Binaries'': A Direct Measurement of the Galactocentric Distance

We present a new geometrical method for measuring the distance to the Galactic center (R_0) by solving for the Keplerian orbit of individual stars bound to the black hole associated with the Sgr A* from radial velocity and proper motion measurements. We identify three stars to which the method may be applied, and show that 1-5 % accuracy of R_0 can be expected after 15 years of observing, and 0.5-2 % after 30 years of observing, depending on what the orbital parameters of these three stars turn out to be. Combining the measurements of the three stars with favorable orbital parameters leads to even more precise values. In the example that we present, such combined solution yields 4 % accuracy already by the year 2002. All these estimates assume that annual position measurements will continue to be made with the 2 mas precision recently reported by Ghez et al. The precision of the distance measurement is relatively insensitive to the radial velocity errors, provided that the latter are less than 50 km/s. Besides potentially giving an estimate of R_0 that is better than any currently in use, the greatest advantage of this method is that it is free from systematic errors.Comment: Submitted to ApJ, 14 pages, 8 figure

The need for a second black hole at the Galactic center

Deep infra-red observations and long-term monitoring programs have provided dynamical evidence for a supermassive black hole of mass 3.e6 solar masses associated with the radio source Sagitarrius A* at the center of our Galaxy. The brightest stars orbiting within 0.1 parsecs of the black hole appear to be young, massive main sequence stars, n spite of an environment near the black hole that is hostile to star formation. We discuss mechanisms by which stars born outside the central parsec can sink towards the black hole and conclude that the drag coming from plausible stellar populations does not operate on the short timescales required by the stellar ages. We propose that these stars were dragged in by a second black hole of mass of 1.e3-1.e4 solar masses, which would be classified as an intermediate-mass black hole. We discuss the implications for the stellar populations and the kinematics in the Galactic center. Finally we note that continued astrometric monitoring of the central radio source offers the prospect for a direct detection of such objects.Comment: 5 pages, 2 postscript figures, submitted to ApJ letters The introduction section has been updated since submission to Ap

Ultra-Luminous Infrared Mergers: Elliptical Galaxies in Formation?

We report high quality near-infrared spectroscopy of 12 ultra-luminous infrared galaxy mergers (ULIRGs). Our new VLT and Keck data provide ~0.5" resolution, stellar and gas kinematics of these galaxies most of which are compact systems in the last merger stages. We confirm that ULIRG mergers are 'ellipticals-in-formation'. Random motions dominate their stellar dynamics, but significant rotation is common. Gas and stellar dynamics are decoupled in most systems. ULIRGs fall on or near the fundamental plane of hot stellar systems, and especially on its less evolution sensitive, r(eff)-sigma projection. The ULIRG velocity dispersion distribution, their location in the fundamental plane and their distribution of v(rot)*sin(i)/sigma closely resemble those of intermediate mass (~L*), elliptical galaxies with moderate rotation. As a group ULIRGs do not resemble giant ellipticals with large cores and little rotation. Our results are in good agreement with other recent studies indicating that disky ellipticals with compact cores or cusps can form through dissipative mergers of gas rich, disk galaxies while giant ellipticals with large cores have a different formation history.Comment: submitted to Ap

Near-Infrared-Spectroscopy with Extremely Large Telescopes: Integral-Field- versus Multi-Object-Instruments

Integral-field-spectroscopy and multi-object-spectroscopy provide the high multiplex gain required for efficient use of the upcoming generation of extremely large telescopes. We present instrument developments and designs for both concepts, and how these designs can be applied to cryogenic near-infrared instrumentation. Specifically, the fiber-based concept stands out the possibility to expand it to any number of image points, and its modularity predestines it to become the new concept for multi-field-spectroscopy. Which of the three concepts --- integral-field-, multi-object-, or multi-field-spectroscopy --- is best suited for the largest telescopes is discussed considering the size of the objects and their density on the sky.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures (converted to bitmap), to appear in the proceedings of the Workshop on Extremely Large Telescopes, Sweden, June 1-2, 1999, uses spie.sty (V0.91) and spiebib.bst (V0.91

Structural perfection of Hg1−xCdxTe Grown by THM

The defect structure of single crystals of Hg1-xCdxTe grown by the travelling heater method (THM) has been investigated using X-ray double crystal topography and a chemical etching technique. The structural perfection is found to depend on the ratio of growth and solidus temperature Tg/Ts

Measures of galaxy dust and gas mass with Herschel photometry and prospects for ALMA

(Abridged) Combining the deepest Herschel extragalactic surveys (PEP, GOODS-H, HerMES), and Monte Carlo mock catalogs, we explore the robustness of dust mass estimates based on modeling of broad band spectral energy distributions (SEDs) with two popular approaches: Draine & Li (2007, DL07) and a modified black body (MBB). As long as the observed SED extends to at least 160-200 micron in the rest frame, M(dust) can be recovered with a >3 sigma significance and without the occurrence of systematics. An average offset of a factor ~1.5 exists between DL07- and MBB-based dust masses, based on consistent dust properties. At the depth of the deepest Herschel surveys (in the GOODS-S field) it is possible to retrieve dust masses with a S/N>=3 for galaxies on the main sequence of star formation (MS) down to M(stars)~1e10 [M(sun)] up to z~1. At higher redshift (z<=2) the same result is achieved only for objects at the tip of the MS or lying above it. Molecular gas masses, obtained converting M(dust) through the metallicity-dependent gas-to-dust ratio delta(GDR), are consistent with those based on the scaling of depletion time, and on CO spectroscopy. Focusing on CO-detected galaxies at z>1, the delta(GDR) dependence on metallicity is consistent with the local relation. We combine far-IR Herschel data and sub-mm ALMA expected fluxes to study the advantages of a full SED coverage.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics. Some figures have degraded quality for filesize reason