Monitoring the Size and Flux Density of Sgr A* during the Active State in 2019 with East Asian VLBI Network
Abstract
In this work, we studied the Galactic Center supermassive black hole (SMBH), Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), with the KVN and VERA Array (KaVA)/East Asian VLBI Network (EAVN) monitoring observations. Especially in 13 May 2019, Sgr A* experienced an unprecedented bright near infra-red (NIR) flare; so, we find a possible counterpart at 43 GHz (7 mm). As a result, a large temporal variation of the flux density at the level ∼15.4%, with the highest flux density of 2.04 Jy, is found on 11 May 2019. Interestingly, the intrinsic sizes are also variable, and the area and major-axis size show marginal correlation with flux density with ≳2 σ. Thus, we interpret that the emission region at 43 GHz follows the larger-when-brighter relation in 2019. The possible origins are discussed with an emergence of a weak jet/outflow component and the position angle change of the rotation axis of the accretion disk in time.
- Publication:
-
Galaxies
- Pub Date:
- March 2023
- DOI:
- arXiv:
- arXiv:2303.04421
- Bibcode:
- 2023Galax..11...46C
- Keywords:
-
- very long baseline interferometry (1769);
- radio astronomy (1338);
- galactic center (565);
- supermassive black holes (1663);
- Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena;
- High Energy Physics - Experiment
- E-Print:
- 15 pages, 7 figures, 3 tables, Published in the Galaxies Special Issue "Challenges in Understanding Black Hole Powered Jets with VLBI"