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Gravitational Deflection of Light from the Stars Orbiting the



 
 
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Old June 9th 09, 10:50 AM posted to sci.astro.research
Thomas Smid
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Posts: 151
Default Gravitational Deflection of Light from the Stars Orbiting the

In the last few years, it has become a well established fact that at
the center of our galaxy there is a supermassive object with a mass of
about 4 million solar masses. This is clearly proven by the orbits of
stars very close to the galactic center( see for instance
http://www.mpe.mpg.de/www-ir/GC/ ).

I just wonder how the deflection of light by the gravitational field
of Sagittarius A* affects the apparent position of these stars. The
point is that with a mass of 4*10^6 solar masses and a distance of
about 10 light days (which corresponds to a distance of 2.6*10^11 km
or 3.7*10^5 solar radii) the usual deflection formula would result in
a deflection 4*10^6/ 3.7*10^5 /2 = 5 times larger than the
gravitational deflection near the sun's limb, i.e. about
9" (arcseconds) (I added the additional factor 1/2 in the ratio
because of the fact that the light is produced within the
gravitational field and does not come from outside like for the solar
case). Since 10 light days at a distance of 26,000 light years
corresponds to an angle of 0.2" (see also
http://www.astrophysicsspectator.com...tralStars.html
), this means that, according to GR, we should see the stars actually
at a distance 45 times further from the galactic centre than they
appear to be.

Does anybody have an explanation for the absence of any gravitational
deflection of this magnitude here?

Thomas
 




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