New Probes of the Galactic Black Hole and its Environs

该项目是加州大学洛杉矶分校团队对银河系中心区域的高度可见研究的延续，其中包括最近的超大质量黑洞（SMBH）。借助特殊的仪器，它们能够跟踪靠近银河系中心SMBH的单个恒星的运动。 预计将在2014年和2018年发生的罕见天体物理事件将被观测到，这或许可以提供对SMBH周围重力的间接研究。我们银河系的中心区域提供了一个独特的实验室，用于了解SMBH是如何形成的，以及为什么它们在星系核中如此常见，它还提供了一个实验室来测试我们对引力的基本概念。 提议者将建立在他们现有的跟踪记录和与教育和公共宣传实体的关系，通过为本科教科书和课程材料以及博物馆展览创建公开可用的材料，向公众传播他们的工作，参加纪录片，并进行公开演讲，天文馆表演和小学课堂演示。 该小组还将继续直接培训和指导本科生和研究生，特别强调从代表性不足的群体中招收学生。 该团队将使用Keck自适应光学系统上的升级激光器以及OSIRIS中的新光栅：（1）通过捕获G2（一种假定的气体云）与银河系SMBH的预期相遇来研究黑洞吸积物理，因为它正在通过其最近的方法;（2）在2018年捕获最接近S 0 -2的方法，并具有足够的精度，以在未探索的区域中测试广义相对论的预测（距离黑洞近100倍，质量比以前的任何试验大400，000倍），并以优于1%的精度测量到银河系中心的距离;（3）构建核星星团星星形成和动力学历史的综合图像。

This project is a continuation of the UCLA team's highly-visible study of the central regions of our Galaxy, which includes the nearest supermassive black hole (SMBH). With special instrumentation, they are able to follow the motions of individual stars orbiting close to the SMBH in the center of our galaxy. Rare astrophysical events predicted to occur in both 2014 and 2018 will be observed, perhaps offering an indirect study of gravity around the SMBH. The central region of our galaxy provides a unique laboratory for understanding how SMBHs are formed and why they are so common in galactic nuclei, and it provides a laboratory to test our fundamental notions of gravity. The proposers will build on their existing track-record and relationships with education and public outreach entities to disseminate their work to the general public, by creating publicly-available material for undergraduate textbooks and course material, and museum exhibits, participating in documentaries, and giving public talks, planetarium shows, and elementary-school classroom presentations. This group will also continue to directly train and mentor undergraduate and graduate students, with a special emphasis placed on recruiting students from underrepresented groups. The team will use the upgraded laser on the Keck Adaptive Optics system as well as the new grating in OSIRIS to: (1) Investigate black hole accretion physics by capturing the anticipated encounter of G2 - a putative gas cloud - with the Galaxy's SMBH as it goes through its closest approach; (2) Capture the closest approach of S0-2 in 2018 with sufficient precision to test predictions of General Relativity in an unexplored regime (100 times closer to a black hole and on a mass scale that is 400,000 times larger than any previous test) and to measure the distance to the Galactic Center with better than 1% precision; (3) Construct a comprehensive picture of the star formation and dynamical history of the nuclear star cluster.