[colloque] Testing General Relativity with Infrared Interferometry in the Center of the Milky Way

by Jean-Philippe Berger (IPAG)

Tuesday 12 Feb 2019, 11:00 → 12:00 Europe/Paris

Grand Amphi (LPSC)

There are strong evidences that the center of the Milky Way hosts a super-massive black hole. This offers a unique opportunity to test General Relativity in the strong ggravity regime. However, probing these effects requires to observe the black hole environment with an angular resolution that can not be reached with classical single-dish telescopes. The Gravity infrared interferometric instrument has been designed to make use of the Very Large Telescope Interferometer in order to observe the galactic center with milli-arcsecond resolution imaging capability and micro-arcsecond astrometric capability. I will introduce Gravity's concept and then present what the passage of the S2 star through close the black-hole periastron told us. Finally I will discuss the implications of the astrometric signature detected on the enigmatic flare.