10656(  1) - 04/05/05 12:21  - [  1]

    PROPOSAL FOR HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE OBSERVATIONS   ST ScI Use Only
                                                       ID:      10656
                                                       Version: 1
                                                       Check-in Date: 05-Apr-2005
                                                                      16:20:59

1.Proposal Title:
An HST/NICMOS Study of our Galaxy's Central Supermassive Black Hole and its
Environment
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2. Proposal For  3. Cycle  4. Parallel Pointing Tolerance
AR               14        <none>
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5. Investigators
                                                                                     Contact?
    PI: Prof. Andrea Ghez                 University of California - Los Angeles
   CoI: Prof. Mark Morris                 University of California - Los Angeles        N
   CoI: Mr. Marc Rafelski                 University of California - Los Angeles        N
   CoI: Mr. Seth D. Hornstein             University of California - Los Angeles        N
   CoI: Ms. Jessica R. Lu                 University of California - Los Angeles        N

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6. Abstract

The pace of discovery in Galactic center research has been extraordinary over the
past few years, largely as a result of high angular resolution infrared
observations. We propose to extract unique measurements from the HST archive that
will augment high-resolution, ground-based studies of the Galactic center, with
three primary objectives: 1) using the short-period (as low as 15 yr) orbits of the
closest measurable stars near the black hole to determine the distance to the
Galactic center, 2) addressing the problem of how massive, young stars can be
present in the central parsec, where the strong tidal forces from the black hole are
expected to counteract the gravitational collapse that leads to star formation, by
measuring stellar accelerations and intensity variations and 3) characterizing the
innermost portions of the accretion flow onto the black hole using the recently-
detected, variable near-infrared emission that presumably arises from relativistic
electrons in the inner accretion flow.
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                                                10656(  1) - 04/05/05 12:21  - [  2]

            Summary Form for Proposal  10656

  Item                         Used in this proposal
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  Proposal Category            AR
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