Mass and Angular Momentum of Sgr A*

Abstract

For very fast spinning black holes with a>0.9953 the orbital velocity of a test particle unexpectly shows a positive radial gradient for low orbits, an effect of GR which has been overlooked so far. For a=0.99616 the maximum radial change of the orbital velocity equals the radial epicyclic frequency, which in turn is in a 1:3 resonance with the vertical epicyclic frequency. Application to Sgr A* using the quasi-periodic oscillations recently measured suggest that the mass of Sgr A* is 3.28 +/- 0.13 million solar masses.

2 pages, 1 figure, poster contribution to Conf. Proc. "Growing Black Holes", Garching, 2004, Eds. A. Merloni, S. Nayakshin, R. Sunyaev, Springer series "ESO Astrophysics Symposia", in print