PPN--spin degeneracies in mock S62-like stellar-orbit inference
astro-ph.GA
Submitted: 2026-09-04
Updated: 2026-09-04
Comments: 21 pages, 15 figures
Journal ref: MNRAS 551, stag1407 (2026)
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
The gist: We investigate the degeneracies between black hole (BH) spin effects and parametrized post-Newtonian (PPN) parameters in the relativistic orbital dynamics of S2-like and S62-like stars orbiting
Terminology
Abstract
We investigate the degeneracies between black hole (BH) spin effects and parametrized post-Newtonian (PPN) parameters in the relativistic orbital dynamics of S2-like and S62-like stars orbiting Sagittarius A. Using a 1PN+SO Hamiltonian framework and synthetic astrometric and radial velocity datasets, we perform Bayesian parameter inference. For current baseline observational precisions, the dominant relativistic observable--the Schwarzschild periapsis advance--allows the recovery of the effective precession parameter Υ, while leaving the individual PPN parameters γ and β degenerate. Assuming microarcsecond-level astrometric precision, the spin-induced Lense-Thirring signal becomes partially detectable; fixing the PPN sector to General Relativity allows the BH spin magnitude to be constrained to an uncertainty of about10-2. However, simultaneously varying PPN and spin parameters reveals a strong, approximately linear covariance between Υ and the dimensionless spin parameter χ. To overcome this limitation, we demonstrate that joint multi-star inference can disentangle the degeneracy by combining a wider-orbit star, which constrains the dominant 1PN sector, with a compact relativistic orbit that is sensitive to Lense-Thirring frame dragging.
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