NIRSpec & MIRI Integral-Field Spectroscopy of the Galactic Center
Abstract
FERRUIT_4550 NIRSpec IFU Galactic Center WRIGHT_7509 MIRI MRS Sag A* WRIGHT_7510 MIRI MRS Sag A*_bg
At a distance of 8 kpc, the center of our galaxy is the closest galactic nucleus that can be studied. It harbors one of the two largest SMBH in projected size on the sky (see e.g. Eckart, Schoedel & Straubmeier 2005). The central stellar cluster, the S-stars, contain massive, young and luminous stars (e.g. Schödel et al. 2002; Ghez et al. 2003; Eisenhauer et al. 2005; Ghez et al. 2005) surrounding an interacting with SgrA*, the radio counterpart of the 4×10^6 M? super massive black hole (SMBH). In contrast to gas, the orbits of the stars are governed by gravitation only and therefore provide an excellent tracer for the gravitational potential in our Galactic center. This unique setup provides the best measurement of the mass of a black hole to date and unambiguously confirms the existence of a supermassive black hole in the center of our galaxy (Genzel et al. 2010). Schödel et al. (2002) and Ghez et al. (2003) carried out high resolution near-IR imaging and spectroscopy of the central region of our Milky Way. They found a star (nowadays known as S2) closely bound to a central massive object with an orbital period of 15.2 years (see also Gillessen et al. 2009a). The monitoring of its orbit for over 10 years provided the best observation of a Keplerian orbit around a massive black hole to date. Today, the number of well-determined orbits has risen from 1 to 28 while 109 stars in total are still being monitored (Gillessen et al. 2009b). We propose to observe the Galactic Center using both NIRSpec and MIRI Integral Field Spectroscopy. This will not only provide an excellent opportunity to detectc, for the first time, SgrA* in th MIR (likely dilution effects have made it impossible so far) but will give detailed 3D spectrocopic data in all the JWST spectral range to study the central stellar cluster in detail. The original proposal requested a background taget for MIRI (GC-BG-MIRI). After updates in the guide star catalog and increases in the guide star spoiler radius, we are not able to use that target as a background (cannot be schedule back-to-back). Here we propose three different background targets that can be scheduled.- Publication:
-
JWST Proposal. Cycle 1
- Pub Date:
- July 2017
- Bibcode:
- 2017jwst.prop.1266G