Distinguishing radiation flare models at the Galactic center with the GRAVITY instrument

Séminaire IPAG de Frederic Vincent (Centre Astronomique Copernic, Warsaw), jeudi 13 mars 2014 à 11h00, IPAG seminar room

Studying variable phenomena in the vicinity of black holes is interesting as it allows to better understand physics in strong gravitational fields. It may also lead in the distant future to observationally probing spacetime in the very vicinity of a compact object, thus testing the predictions of general relativity in its most extreme regime. Radiation flares at the Galactic center are an example of such variable phenomena. I will analyze the ability of the very near future (first light May 2015) interferometer GRAVITY to improve our understanding of these flares emitted in the vicinity of our supermassive black hole Sgr A*. I will show GRAVITY observation simulations of such flares in the framework of different models and discuss the ability of the instrument to differentiate the currently undistinguishable models.