Stellar Systems Group

Zamaninasab, M.; Witzel, G.; Eckart, A.; Sabha, N.; Dovciak, M.; Karas, V.; Schödel, R.; García-Marín, M.; Kunneriath, D.; Nishiyama, S.; Straubmeier, C.; Valencia-Schneider, M.; Zensus, A.
The Galactic Center: a Window to the Nuclear Environment of Disk Galaxies. Proceedings of a workshop held at Shanghai, China on October 19-23, 2009. Edited by Mark R. Morris, Q. Daniel Wang, and Feng Yuan. San Francisco: Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 2011, p.323
05/2011

ABSTRACT

Our goal is to investigate and understand the physical processes behind the variability associated with the NIR flaring emission from Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*). We found a correlation between the modulations of the observed flux density light curves and changes in polarimetric data. Correlations between intensity and polarimetric parameters of the observed light curves as well as a comparison of predicted and observed light curve features through a panttern recognition algorithm resulted in the detection of a signature of orbiting matter under the influence of strong gravity. This pattern is detected statistically significant against randomly polarized red noise.