Work

Probing an Intermediate-Mass Black Hole Companion of Sagittarius A* with Pulsar Timing

Year: 2026

Type: preprint

Abstract: An intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH) hidden in our Galactic Center (GC) may explain the puzzling observations of the stellar distribution around Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the supermassive black hole (SMBH) in the GC. Future observations with the next-generation radio telescopes, such as the SKA, are promising to discover pulsars orbiting around Sgr A*, and thus provide the possibility of constraining the hidden IMBH with pulsar timing. We study the detectability of a third-body, the IMBH, in the pulsar-SMBH system based on radio timing observation. We find that the pulsar-SMBH system is very sensitive to such a third-body perturbation and can be used to put stringent constraints on the existence of the IMBH. Even under strong perturbations caused by the complex GC astrophysical environments, timing observation will still complement the existing observational constraints.

Source: arXiv (Cornell University)

DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2607.24201

Authors: Hu, Zexin, Shao, Lijing

Institutions: Peking University, Chinese Academy of Sciences, National Astronomical Observatories

Language: English

Topic: Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research

Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics

Field: Physics and Astronomy

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Natural Science Foundation of China, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Peking University

Awards: G1392715135, G1449749000, G2416880720

OpenAlex ID: W7171567242

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