Deviation of Stellar Orbits from Test Particle Trajectories Around Sgr A* Due to Tides and Winds

Abstract

Monitoring the orbits of stars around Sgr A* offers the possibility of detecting the precession of their orbital planes due to frame dragging, of measuring the spin and quadrupole moment of the black hole, and of testing the no-hair theorem. Here we investigate whether the deviations of stellar orbits from test-particle trajectories due to wind mass loss and tidal dissipation of the orbital energy compromise such measurements. We find that the effects of stellar winds are, in general, negligible. On the other hand, for the most eccentric orbits (e>0.96) for which an optical interferometer, such as GRAVITY, will detect orbital plane precession due to frame dragging, the tidal dissipation of orbital energy occurs at timescales comparable to the timescale of precession due to the quadrupole moment of the black hole. As a result, this non-conservative effect is a potential source of systematic uncertainty in testing the no-hair theorem with stellar orbits.

Submitted to the Astrophysical Journal

References in corpus (7)

• Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA)
• ADIPLS -- the Aarhus adiabatic oscillation package
• Testing the general relativistic ''no-hair'' theorems using the galactic center black hole SgrA*
• The Shortest Known Period Star Orbiting our Galaxy's Supermassive Black Hole
• On the nature of the fast moving star S2 in the Galactic Center
• Accumulated Tidal Heating of Stars Over Multiple Pericenter Passages Near SgrA*
• Disentangling Confused Stars at the Galactic Center with Long Baseline Infrared Interferometry

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• Testing the No-Hair Theorem with Observations of Black Holes in the Electromagnetic Spectrum
• Scalar field effects on the orbit of S2 star
• On Testing the Kerr Metric of the Massive Black Hole in the Galactic Center via Stellar Orbital Motion: Full General Relativistic Treatment
• What stellar orbit is needed to measure the spin of the Galactic center black hole from astrometric data?
• Prospects for constraining the spin of the massive black hole at the Galactic center via the relativistic motion of a surrounding star
• On the Newtonian and Spin-induced Perturbations felt by the Stars Orbiting around the Massive Black Hole in the Galactic Center
• Detecting Black Hole Occultations by Stars with Space Interferometric Telescopes
• The effects of the spin and quadrupole moment of SgrA* on the orbits of S stars