ALMA View of the Galactic Center Minispiral: Ionized Gas Flows around Sagittarius A

作者:Tsuboi Masato*; Kitamura Yoshimi; Uehara Kenta; Miyawaki Ryosuke; Tsutsumi Takahiro; Miyazaki Atsushi; Miyoshi Makoto
来源:Astrophysical Journal, 2017, 842(2): 94.
DOI:10.3847/1538-4357/aa74e3

摘要

We have observed the "Galactic center minispiral (GCMS)" in the H42 alpha recombination line as a part of the first large-scale mosaic observation in the Sagittarius A complex using Atacama Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). We revealed the kinematics of the ionized gas streamers of the GCMS. We found that the ionized gas streamers of the Northern Arm (NA) and Eastern Arm (EA) in their outer regions somewhat deviate from the Keplerian orbits that were derived previously from the trajectories in the inner regions. In addition, we found that the streamer corresponding to the Bar of the GCMS has a Keplerian orbit with an eccentricity of e similar to 0.8, which is independent from the Keplerian orbits of the other streamers of the GCMS. We estimated the LTE electron temperature and electron density in the ionized gas streamers. We confirmed the previously claimed tendency that the electron temperatures increase toward Sgr A*. We found that the electron density in the NA and EA also increases with approaching Sgr A* without the lateral expansion of the gas streamers. This suggests that there is some external pressure around the GCMS. The ambient ionized gas may cause the confinement and/or the perturbation of the orbits. There is a good positional correlation between the protostar candidates detected by JVLA at 34 GHz and the ionized gas streamer, the Northeastern Arm, newly found by our H42 alpha recombination line observation. This suggests that the candidates had formed in the streamer and they were brought to near Sgr A* as the streamer falls.