Testing the Accretion Flow with Plasma Wave Heating Mechanism for Sagittarius a* by the 1.3MM Vlbi Measurements
Abstract
The vicinity of the supermassive black hole associated with the compact radio source Sagittarius (Sgr) A* is believed to dominate the observed emission at wavelengths near and shorter than 1 millimeter. We show that a general relativistic accretion flow, heated via the plasma wave heating mechanism, is consistent with the polarization and recent mm-VLBI observations of Sgr A* for an inclination angle of 45, position angle of 140, and spin 0.9. Structure in visibilities produced by the black hole shadow can potentially be observed by 1.3 mm-VLBI on the existing Hawaii-CARMA and Hawaii-SMT baselines. We also consider eight additional potential mm-VLBI stations, including sites in Chile and New Zealand, finding that with these the basic geometry of the emission region can be reliably estimated.