Variations in the spectral slope of Sgr A* during a NIR flare
Abstract
We have observed a bright flare of Sgr A* in the near infrared with the adaptive optics assisted integral field spectrometer SINFONI. The observed spectrum is featureless and can be described by a power law. We show for the first time that the spectral index is correlated with the instantaneous flux and that both flux and spectral index experience significant changes within less than one hour. We argue that the near infrared flares from Sgr A* are due to synchrotron emission of transiently heated electrons, the emission being affected by orbital dynamics and synchrotron cooling, both acting on timescales of ~20 minutes. The synchrotron cooling process may account for the observed variation in spectral index, which in turn requires a magnetic field ~30G, consistent with the equipartition field in a hot accretion flow with an accretion rate of ~10^{-8} solar masses per year.Keywords
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