Hunting for extra dimensions in the shadow of Sagittarius A*

TL;DR

This paper uses the shadow of Sagittarius A* to set a new, much tighter upper limit on the AdS$_5$ curvature radius, significantly improving previous constraints and providing one of the first quantitative limits on exotic physics from SgrA*'s image.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to constrain extra dimensions using the SgrA* shadow, achieving three orders of magnitude better accuracy than prior limits.

Findings

Upper limit of $l \,\lesssim\, 0.097$ AU from SgrA* shadow

Improves previous limit by three orders of magnitude

Provides one of the first quantitative constraints on exotic physics from SgrA*

Abstract

Recently, Vagnozzi and Visinelli's work [Phys. Rev. D 100, 024020 (2020)] reveals that M87*'s shadow establishes an upper limit of $l \lesssim 170$ AU, where $l$ is the AdS$_5$ curvature radius and 1 AU is one astronomical unit. The Event Horizon Telescope, on the other hand, just captured the first image of the shadow of Sagittarius A* (SgrA*), the Galactic center source associated with a supermassive black hole. In this paper, we are motivated to comprehensively explore a new upper limit of $l$ with the shadow of SgrA*, and the findings suggest that $l \lesssim 0.097$ AU. Our results improve accuracy by three orders of magnitude. This is also one of the first quantifiable limitations on exotic physics derived from the remarkable first image of the shadow of SgrA*.