REVIEW 20 cited by
Detection of the Schwarzschild precession in the orbit of the star S2 near the Galactic centre massive black hole
Not yet reviewed by Pith; the record is open.
This paper has not been read by Pith yet. Machine review is queued; the pith claim, tier, and objections will appear here once it completes.
SPECIMEN: schema-true, not a live event
T0 review · schema-true
One-sentence machine reading of the paper's core claim.
pith:XXXXXXXX · record.json · timestamp
Signed reviews
read the original abstract
The star S2 orbiting the compact radio source Sgr A* is a precision probe of the gravitational field around the closest massive black hole (candidate). Over the last 2.7 decades we have monitored the star's radial velocity and motion on the sky, mainly with the SINFONI and NACO adaptive optics (AO) instruments on the ESO VLT, and since 2017, with the four-telescope interferometric beam combiner instrument GRAVITY. In this paper we report the first detection of the General Relativity (GR) Schwarzschild Precession (SP) in S2's orbit. Owing to its highly elliptical orbit (e = 0.88), S2's SP is mainly a kink between the pre-and post-pericentre directions of motion ~ +- 1 year around pericentre passage, relative to the corresponding Kepler orbit. The superb 2017-2019 astrometry of GRAVITY defines the pericentre passage and outgoing direction. The incoming direction is anchored by 118 NACO-AO measurements of S2's position in the infrared reference frame, with an additional 75 direct measurements of the S2-Sgr A* separation during bright states ('flares') of Sgr A*. Our 14-parameter model fits for the distance, central mass, the position and motion of the reference frame of the AO astrometry relative to the mass, the six parameters of the orbit, as well as a dimensionless parameter f_SP for the SP (f_SP = 0 for Newton and 1 for GR). From data up to the end of 2019 we robustly detect the SP of S2, del phi = 12' per orbital period. From posterior fitting and MCMC Bayesian analysis with different weighting schemes and bootstrapping we find f_SP = 1.10 +- 0.19. The S2 data are fully consistent with GR. Any extended mass inside S2's orbit cannot exceed ~ 0.1% of the central mass. Any compact third mass inside the central arcsecond must be less than about 1000 M_sun.
Forward citations
Cited by 20 Pith papers
-
The HST-Gaia Near-Infrared Astrometric Reference Frame near the Milky Way Galactic Center
A new infrared astrometric reference frame for the Galactic center, built from 14 epochs of Hubble data tied to Gaia, reaches 0.03 mas/yr precision and is consistent with radio maser frames.
-
Gravitational-wave generation in the presence of Lorentz invariance violation
Gravitational waves in a class of Lorentz-violating gravity theories would have amplitude components that do not decay with distance, strongly constraining those theories.
-
Probing nonlinear electrodynamics-sourced black holes via light and orbital mechanics
For ModMax black holes, Shapiro time delay and gravitational redshift are identical for both photon polarizations, while Sagnac and kinematic shifts distinguish them; S2 precession bounds e^-gamma (Q/2M)^2 <= 0.135.
-
From S2 to LISA: Astrometric Bounds on Extreme-Mass-Ratio Inspirals and Bursts
GRAVITY/S2 astrometry constrains the Galactic Centre stellar-mass black-hole cusp, giving upper limits of ~2.4×10^2 Gyr^-1 on the Milky Way EMRI rate and ~0.2 yr^-1 on detectable EMRBs, with a potentially LISA-visible...
-
Establishing Compactness as a Population Observable in Gravitational-Wave Astronomy
Hierarchical analysis of GWTC-3 yields C_eff = 0.5^{+0.3}_{-0.1} consistent with black holes and limits low-compactness exotic binary merger rate to <0.7 Gpc^{-3} yr^{-1}.
-
Regular Black Holes in General Relativity from Nonlinear Electrodynamics with de Sitter Cores
Two new regular black-hole solutions with de Sitter cores, supported by magnetic nonlinear electrodynamics, are constrained by Sgr A* shadows and shown to be linearly stable under scalar perturbations.
-
Bayesian analysis of analog gravity systems with the Rezzolla-Zhidenko metric
Bayesian MCMC inference over Rezzolla-Zhidenko metric parameters can recover the injected analog black hole spacetime from the full time-domain ringdown signal, at least in closed-loop simulations.
-
Perturbative black-hole and horizon solutions in gravity with explicit spacetime-symmetry breaking
New perturbative black hole solutions in an explicit spacetime-symmetry-breaking gravity EFT, with derived observables including three-horizon metrics when two coefficients are active.
-
Probing the Distribution and Nature of Dark Matter Around Supermassive Black Holes from EMRI and IMRI Gravitational Waves
Dark-matter halos built from exact relativistic Einstein-cloud solutions can measurably dephase EMRI/IMRI gravitational waves, mainly through changes in spacetime geometry rather than dynamical friction.
-
Strong field gravitational lensing of particles by a black-bounce-Schwarzschild black hole
For a black-bounce-Schwarzschild black hole, the paper derives the strong-deflection lensing observables for massive particles and quantifies how they differ from photon lensing.
-
Periodic orbits and their gravitational waves in EMRIs: supermassive black hole affected by galactic dark matter halos
Periodic zoom-whirl orbits and their gravitational waveforms in NFW, Beta, and Moore dark matter halos deviate from Schwarzschild predictions by an amount set by halo mass and radius, with NFW and Beta nearly identica...
-
Constraining ModMax Black Holes with EHT and GRAVITY Observations: Optical Signatures and Accretion Disk Properties
Combining EHT shadow observations of M87* and Sgr A* with mass and distance priors yields 95% upper limits Q < 0.391 and v < 4.153 on the ModMax black hole charge and nonlinearity parameter.
-
Multiscale probing of a Hernquist-type environmental black hole spacetime with the Sgr A* shadow and S2 orbital dynamics
Observations of Sgr A*'s shadow and the S2 star's orbit constrain the Hernquist-type environmental halo compactness to below about 10^-4, while its radial scale stays bimodally degenerate.
-
Schwarzschild-like Black Holes Submerged in an Exponential Density Dark Matter Profile
An analytic Schwarzschild-like metric with an exponential dark matter halo is constructed and its shadows, quasi-normal modes, and greybody bounds are computed, though several derived expressions have sign errors.
-
On relativistic observables in black bounce spacetimes
Black bounce spacetimes with larger throat parameter α produce enhanced periastron precession, light deflection, and a larger critical impact parameter in the wormhole regime, offering potential observational signatures.
-
Galactic Centre Pulsars with the SKAO
Updated SKA-MID sensitivity and multi-beam search strategies can detect up to ~84% of Galactic Centre pulsars (and ~60% of MSPs) under magnetar-like scattering, unlocking precision tests around Sgr A*.
-
Optical and orbital characterization of spherically symmetric static black holes of self-gravitating new nonlinear electrodynamics model
PINLED Y^n black holes have charge-driven inward shifts of photon sphere, shadow, and ISCO, with null-geodesic observables distinguishing them from RN more clearly than timelike ones.
-
Charged black hole solutions in $f(R,T)$ gravity coupled to nonlinear electrodynamics
The authors derive a family of charged black hole metrics in f(R,T)=R+βT gravity with Lagrangian L=f0+F+αF^p, show they have curvature singularities at the origin, and use the Sgr A* shadow to place weak upper bounds ...
-
Observable thin accretion disk around a self-dual black hole in loop quantum gravity
A self-dual loop quantum black hole is shown to look smaller and brighter than Schwarzschild in thin disk models, with the polymer parameter P bounded by Mercury and S2 star data.
-
Shadow in the Galactic Center: Theoretical Concept -- Prediction -- Realization
A historical review of GR and black hole shadow observations that also demonstrates a modified metric can mimic the Schwarzschild shadow, meaning shadows alone do not uniquely identify black holes.
Discussion (0). Continue with ORCID to comment.