Plunging Plasma Blobs near the Marginally Stable Orbit of Sgr A*

TL;DR

This paper models the observational signatures of plunging plasma blobs near the marginally stable orbit of Sgr A*, incorporating relativistic effects to understand flaring activity.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive model of light curves from plunging material near Sgr A*'s event horizon, including relativistic effects for unpolarized synchrotron emission.

Findings

Relativistic effects significantly influence observed light curves.

Model matches observed flare signatures across multiple wavelengths.

Provides insights into the dynamics near the black hole's event horizon.

Abstract

Multi-wavelength monitoring of Sgr A* flaring activity confirms the presence of embedded structures within the disk on size scales commensurate with the innermost accretion region, matching size scales that are derived from observed light curves within a broad range of wavelengths. We explore here a few of the observational signatures for an orbiting spot in non-keplerian motion near the event horizon of Sgr A* and model light curves from plunging emitting material near the marginally stable orbit of Sgr A*. All special and general relativistic effects (relativistic beaming, redshifts and blue-shifts, lensing effect, photon time delays) for unpolarized synchrotron emission near a Schwarzschild and Kerr black hole are all taken into consideration.