No asymmetric outflows from Sagittarius A* during the pericenter passage of the gas cloud G2

¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University, 1 Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu, 151-742 Seoul, Korea
e-mail: jhpark@astro.snu.ac.kr; trippe@astro.snu.ac.kr
² Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie (MPIfR), Auf dem Hügel 69, 53121 Bonn, Germany
³ Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI), 776 Daedeokdae-ro, Yuseong-gu, 305-348 Daejeon, Korea
⁴ Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformation, Bonn University, Nussallee 17, 53115 Bonn, Germany
⁵ Institut de Radioastronomie Millimétrique (IRAM), 300 rue de la Piscine, 38406 Saint-Martin d’ Hères, France
⁶ Observatorio Astronomico Nacional (IGN), Observatorio de Yebes, Aptdo. 148, Yebes, 19080 Guadalajara, Spain

Received: 26 February 2015
Accepted: 31 March 2015

Abstract

The gas cloud G2 that falls toward Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, is assumed to provide valuable information on the physics of accretion flows and the environment of the black hole. We observed Sgr A* with four European stations of the Global Millimeter Very Long Baseline Interferometry Array (GMVA) at 86 GHz on 1 October 2013 when parts of G2 had already passed the pericenter. We searched for a possible transient asymmetric structure – such as jets or winds from hot accretion flows – around Sgr A* that might be caused by accretion of material from G2. The interferometric closure phases remained zero within errors during the observation time. We therefore conclude that Sgr A* did not show significant asymmetric (in the observer frame) outflows in late 2013. Using simulations, we constrain the size of the outflows that we could have missed to ≈2.5 mas along the major axis and ≈0.4 mas along the minor axis of the beam, corresponding to approximately 232 and 35 Schwarzschild radii, respectively; we thus probe spatial scales on which the jets of radio galaxies are thought to convert magnetic into kinetic energy. Because probably less than 0.2 Jy of the flux from Sgr A* can be attributed to accretion from G2, the effective accretion rate is ηṀ ≲ 1.5 × 10⁹ kg s^-1 ≈ 7.7 × 10^-9M_⊕ yr^-1 for material from G2. Exploiting the relation of kinetic jet power to accretion power of radio galaxies shows that the rate of accretion of matter that is finally deposited in jets is limited to Ṁ ≲ 10¹⁷ kg s^-1 ≈ 0.5 M_⊕ yr^-1. Accordingly, G2 appears to be mostly stable against loss of angular momentum and subsequent (partial) accretion at least on timescales ≲1 yr.