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1. General relativistic MHD simulations of non-thermal flaring in Sagittarius A*

   https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stab2466  

   Chatterjee, K; Markoff, S; Neilsen, J; Younsi, Z; Witzel, G; Tchekhovskoy, A; Yoon, D; Ingram, A; van der Klis, M; Boyce, H; et al (September 2021, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society)

   ABSTRACT Sgr A* exhibits regular variability in its multiwavelength emission, including daily X-ray flares and roughly continuous near-infrared (NIR) flickering. The origin of this variability is still ambiguous since both inverse Compton and synchrotron emission are possible radiative mechanisms. The underlying particle distributions are also not well constrained, particularly the non-thermal contribution. In this work, we employ the GPU-accelerated general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics code H-AMR to perform a study of flare flux distributions, including the effect of particle acceleration for the first time in high-resolution 3D simulations of Sgr A*. For the particle acceleration, we use the general relativistic ray-tracing code bhoss to perform the radiative transfer, assuming a hybrid thermal+non-thermal electron energy distribution. We extract ∼60 h light curves in the sub-millimetre, NIR and X-ray wavebands, and compare the power spectra and the cumulative flux distributions of the light curves to statistical descriptions for Sgr A* flares. Our results indicate that non-thermal populations of electrons arising from turbulence-driven reconnection in weakly magnetized accretion flows lead to moderate NIR and X-ray flares and reasonably describe the X-ray flux distribution while fulfilling multiwavelength flux constraints. These models exhibit high rms per cent amplitudes, $$\gtrsim 150{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$$ both in the NIR and the X-rays, with changes in the accretion rate driving the 230 GHz flux variability, in agreement with Sgr A* observations. 

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2. Multiwavelength Variability of Sagittarius A* in 2019 July

   https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac6104  

   Boyce, H.; Haggard, D.; Witzel, G.; Fellenberg, S. von; Willner, S. P.; Becklin, E. E.; Do, T.; Eckart, A.; Fazio, G. G.; Gurwell, M. A.; et al (May 2022, The Astrophysical Journal)

   Abstract We report a timing analysis of near-infrared (NIR), X-ray, and submillimeter data during a 3 day coordinated campaign observing Sagittarius A*. Data were collected at 4.5 μ m with the Spitzer Space Telescope, 2–8 keV with the Chandra X-ray Observatory, 3–70 keV with NuSTAR, 340 GHz with ALMA, and 2.2 μ m with the GRAVITY instrument on the Very Large Telescope Interferometer. Two dates show moderate variability with no significant lags between the submillimeter and the infrared at 99% confidence. A moderately bright NIR flare ( F K ∼ 15 mJy) was captured on July 18 simultaneous with an X-ray flare ( F 2−10 keV ∼ 0.1 counts s −1 ) that most likely preceded bright submillimeter flux ( F 340 GHz ∼ 5.5 Jy) by about + 34 − 33 + 14 minutes at 99% confidence. The uncertainty in this lag is dominated by the fact that we did not observe the peak of the submillimeter emission. A synchrotron source cooled through adiabatic expansion can describe a rise in the submillimeter once the synchrotron self-Compton NIR and X-ray peaks have faded. This model predicts high GHz and THz fluxes at the time of the NIR/X-ray peak and electron densities well above those implied from average accretion rates for Sgr A*. However, the higher electron density postulated in this scenario would be in agreement with the idea that 2019 was an extraordinary epoch with a heightened accretion rate. Since the NIR and X-ray peaks can also be fit by a nonthermal synchrotron source with lower electron densities, we cannot rule out an unrelated chance coincidence of this bright submillimeter flare with the NIR/X-ray emission. 

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3. The relationship between simulated sub-millimeter and near-infrared images of Sagittarius A* from a magnetically arrested black hole accretion flow

   https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stae934  

   Grigorian, A A; Dexter, J (April 2024, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society)

   Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, undergoes large-amplitude near-infrared (NIR) flares that can coincide with the continuous rotation of the NIR emission region. One promising explanation for this observed NIR behaviour is a magnetic flux eruption, which occurs in three-dimensional General Relativistic Magneto-Hydrodynamic (3D GRMHD) simulations of magnetically arrested accretion flows. After running two-temperature 3D GRMHD simulations, where the electron temperature is evolved self-consistently along with the gas temperature, it is possible to calculate ray-traced images of the synchotron emission from thermal electrons in the accretion flow. Changes in the gas-dominated (σ = b2/2ρ < 1) regions of the accretion flow during a magnetic flux eruption reproduce the NIR flaring and NIR emission region rotation of Sgr A* with durations consistent with observation. In this paper, we demonstrate that these models also predict that large (1.5x – 2x) size increases of the sub-millimeter (sub-mm) and millimeter (mm) emission region follow most NIR flares by 20–50 min. These size increases occur across a wide parameter space of black hole spin (a = 0.3, 0.5, −0.5, and 0.9375) and initial tilt angle between the accretion flow and black hole spin axes θ0 (θ0 = 0°, 16°, and 30°). We also calculate the sub-mm polarization angle rotation and the shift of the sub-mm spectral index from zero to –0.8 during a prominent NIR flare in our high spin (a = 0.9375) simulation. We show that, during a magnetic flux eruption, a large (∼10rg), magnetically dominated (σ > 1), low-density, and high-temperature ‘bubble’ forms in the accretion flow. The drop in density inside the bubble and additional electron heating in accretion flow between 15rg and 25rg leads to a sub-mm size increase in corresponding images. 

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4. Non-thermal models for infrared flares from Sgr A*

   https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa826  

   Petersen, Eric; Gammie, Charles (June 2020, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society)

   ABSTRACT Recent observations with mm very long baseline interferometry (mm-VLBI) and near-infrared (NIR) interferometry provide mm images and NIR centroid proper motion for Sgr A*. Of particular interest are the NIR flares that have more than an order of magnitude higher flux density than the quiescent state. Here, we model the flares using time-dependent, axisymmetric, general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (GRMHD) simulations with an electron distribution function that includes a small, variable, non-thermal component motivated by magnetic reconnection models. The models simultaneously match the observed mm mean flux density, mm image size, NIR quiescent flux density, NIR flare flux density, and NIR spectral slope. They also provide a better fit to the observed NIR flux density probability density function than previously reported models by reproducing the power-law tail at high flux density, though with some discrepancy at low flux density. Further, our modelled NIR image centroid shows very little movement: centroid excursions of more than 10 μas (the resolution of GRAVITY) are rare and uncorrelated with flux. 

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5. First Space-VLBI Observations of Sagittarius A*

   https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ac3917  

   Johnson, Michael D.; Kovalev, Yuri Y.; Lisakov, Mikhail M.; Voitsik, Petr A.; Gwinn, Carl R.; Bruni, Gabriele (November 2021, The Astrophysical Journal Letters)

   Abstract We report results from the first Earth-space VLBI observations of the Galactic Center supermassive black hole, Sgr A*. These observations used the space telescope Spektr-R of the RadioAstron project together with a global network of 20 ground telescopes, observing at a wavelength of 1.35 cm. Spektr-R provided baselines up to 3.9 times the diameter of the Earth, corresponding to an angular resolution of approximately 55μas and a spatial resolution of 5.5R_Schat the source, whereR_Sch≡ 2GM/c²is the Schwarzschild radius of Sgr A*. Our short ground baseline measurements ( ≲ 80 Mλ) are consistent with an anisotropic Gaussian image, while our intermediate ground baseline measurements (100–250 Mλ) confirm the presence of persistent image substructure in Sgr A*. Both features are consistent with theoretical expectations for strong scattering in the ionized interstellar medium, which produces Gaussian scatter-broadening on short baselines and refractive substructure on long baselines. We do not detect interferometric fringes on any of the longer ground baselines or on any ground–space baselines. While space-VLBI offers a promising pathway to sharper angular resolution and the measurement of key gravitational signatures in black holes, such as their photon rings, our results demonstrate that space-VLBI studies of Sgr A* will require sensitive observations at submillimeter wavelengths. 

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