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PreprintCC BY 4.0arXiv

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

  • Zexin Hu
  • Lijing Shao
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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.

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Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@misc{hu2026probing,
  title = {{Probing an Intermediate-Mass Black Hole Companion of Sagittarius A* with Pulsar Timing}},
  author = {Zexin Hu and Lijing Shao},
  howpublished = {arXiv},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2607.24201},
  eprint = {2607.24201},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.24201},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY  - UNPB
TI  - Probing an Intermediate-Mass Black Hole Companion of Sagittarius A* with Pulsar Timing
AU  - Zexin Hu
AU  - Lijing Shao
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/19
PB  - arXiv
DO  - 10.48550/arxiv.2607.24201
UR  - https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.24201
AB  - 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.
ER  -