A past capture event at Sagittarius A* inferred from the fluorescent X-ray emission of Sagittarius B clouds

TL;DR

This paper investigates a past X-ray outburst from Sagittarius A* by analyzing fluorescent emission in Sagittarius B clouds, proposing a star capture event with jet interaction as the cause.

Contribution

It introduces a novel hypothesis linking a star capture event and jet activity to observed X-ray fluorescence in Galactic center clouds.

Findings

Fluorescent emission suggests irradiation by a source from ~100 years ago.

Jet interaction with interstellar medium plausibly explains the observed flux and variability.

Star capture event could have triggered the outburst and jet formation.

Abstract

The fluorescent X-ray emission from neutral iron in the molecular clouds (Sgr B) indicates that the clouds are being irradiated by an external X-ray source. The source is probably associated with the Galactic central black hole (Sgr A*), which triggered a bright outburst one hundred years ago. We suggest that such an outburst could be due to a partial capture of a star by Sgr A*, during which a jet was generated. By constraining the observed flux and the time variability ($\sim$ 10 years) of the Sgr B's fluorescent emission, we find that the shock produced by the interaction of the jet with the dense interstellar medium represents a plausible candidate for the X-ray source emission.