Pith. sign in

REVIEW 12 cited by

Improving constraints on the extended mass distribution in the Galactic Center with stellar orbits

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

arxiv 2409.12261 v1 pith:AWHIN67O submitted 2024-09-18 astro-ph.GA astro-ph.HE

classification astro-ph.GAastro-ph.HE
keywords centerdatagalacticmassstarsstellardistributiongravity
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal
0 comments
abstract

Studying the orbital motion of stars around Sagittarius A* in the Galactic Center provides a unique opportunity to probe the gravitational potential near the supermassive black hole at the heart of our Galaxy. Interferometric data obtained with the GRAVITY instrument at the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) since 2016 has allowed us to achieve unprecedented precision in tracking the orbits of these stars. GRAVITY data have been key to detecting the in-plane, prograde Schwarzschild precession of the orbit of the star S2, as predicted by General Relativity. By combining astrometric and spectroscopic data from multiple stars, including S2, S29, S38, and S55 - for which we have data around their time of pericenter passage with GRAVITY - we can now strengthen the significance of this detection to an approximately $10 \sigma$ confidence level. The prograde precession of S2's orbit provides valuable insights into the potential presence of an extended mass distribution surrounding Sagittarius A*, which could consist of a dynamically relaxed stellar cusp comprised of old stars and stellar remnants, along with a possible dark matter spike. Our analysis, based on two plausible density profiles - a power-law and a Plummer profile - constrains the enclosed mass within the orbit of S2 to be consistent with zero, establishing an upper limit of approximately $1200 \, M_\odot$ with a $1 \sigma$ confidence level. This significantly improves our constraints on the mass distribution in the Galactic Center. Our upper limit is very close to the expected value from numerical simulations for a stellar cusp in the Galactic Center, leaving little room for a significant enhancement of dark matter density near Sagittarius A*.

Discussion (0). Continue with ORCID to comment.

Forward citations

Cited by 12 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score. Full citation record

  1. Gravitational-wave generation in the presence of Lorentz invariance violation

    gr-qc 2025-06 conditional novelty 7.0 of 10

    Gravitational waves in a class of Lorentz-violating gravity theories would have amplitude components that do not decay with distance, strongly constraining those theories.

  2. Ubiquitous Corotation of Dark Matter Halos: Implications for Direct Detection

    hep-ph 2026-07 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    Dark matter in simulated Milky Way analogues preferentially corotates with the baryonic disk, suppressing predicted direct-detection rates for light WIMPs, reducing directional modulation, and producing a 21% astrophy...

  3. From S2 to LISA: Astrometric Bounds on Extreme-Mass-Ratio Inspirals and Bursts

    astro-ph.GA 2026-07 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    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...

  4. Dark matter energy exchange in stars orbiting supermassive black holes

    hep-ph 2026-07 unverdicted novelty 6.0 of 10

    Orbit-averaged elastic DM scattering in S4714 reaches stellar luminosity at σ_χp ∼ 10^{-36} cm² (MeV–GeV) and σ_χe ∼ 5×10^{-38} cm² (sub-MeV) for a spiked profile.

  5. The potential of diffuse Galactic Ridge neutrino measurements to constrain dark matter

    astro-ph.HE 2026-05 unverdicted novelty 6.0 of 10

    ANTARES Galactic Ridge upper limits yield competitive dark-matter annihilation/decay bounds, the first neutrino-based branon constraints, and a negative KM3NeT forecast for the thermal relic cross-section.

  6. Axion lines from nuclear de-excitations in galactic stellar populations

    hep-ph 2025-09 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    No 14.4 keV axion line from 57Fe de-excitations is seen by NuSTAR toward M87, M82, M31, or the Galactic Center, yielding |g_ann x g_aγγ| < 1.1e-22 GeV^-1 for m_a < 1e-10 eV.

  7. Probing Fundamental Constant Oscillation in the Galactic Center with S-Star Spectroscopy

    hep-ph 2025-07 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    Time-resolved spectroscopy of S-stars around Sgr A* can probe oscillations of the fine-structure constant induced by superradiant axion clouds or dark-matter soliton cores, with future instruments potentially reaching...

  8. Perturbative black-hole and horizon solutions in gravity with explicit spacetime-symmetry breaking

    gr-qc 2024-11 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    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.

  9. Is S301 the Captured Companion of the Hypervelocity Star S5-HVS1?

    astro-ph.GA 2026-07 accept novelty 5.0 of 10

    S301's orbit and photometric mass satisfy the predicted relation for the captured companion of S5-HVS1, though catalog-level statistical evidence remains weak until the selection function is calibrated.

  10. Constraining ModMax Black Holes with EHT and GRAVITY Observations: Optical Signatures and Accretion Disk Properties

    gr-qc 2026-08 conditional novelty 4.0 of 10

    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.

  11. Galactic Centre Pulsars with the SKAO

    astro-ph.HE 2026-07 accept novelty 4.0 of 10

    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*.

  12. On Equation of State of Dark Matter around Massive Black Holes

    gr-qc 2025-01 conditional novelty 4.0 of 10

    Static dark matter halos around Schwarzschild black holes are viable only if the dark matter pressure is negative, under two toy equations of state and a vanishing horizon-density boundary condition.

Pith tools