title: The shortest-known-period star orbiting our Galaxy's supermassive black hole.
abstract: Stars with short orbital periods at the center of our Galaxy offer a powerful probe of a supermassive black hole. Over the past 17 years, the W. M. Keck Observatory has been used to image the galactic center at the highest angular resolution possible today. By adding to this data set and advancing methodologies, we have detected S0-102, a star orbiting our Galaxy's supermassive black hole with a period of just 11.5 years. S0-102 doubles the number of known stars with full phase coverage and periods of less than 20 years. It thereby provides the opportunity, with future measurements, to resolve degeneracies in the parameters describing the central gravitational potential and to test Einstein's theory of general relativity in an unexplored regime.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1547, USA.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Meyer
authors.forename: A M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Ghez
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Schödel
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yelda
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Boehle
authors.forename: J R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Do
authors.forename: M R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Morris
authors.forename: E E
authors.initials: EE
authors.lastname: Becklin
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Matthews