Monitoring observations of the interaction between Sgr A* and G2 with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array

Abstract

We report on an ongoing community service observing program to follow the expected encounter of the G2 cloud with the black hole Sgr A* in 2013. The NRAO Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) has been observing the Sgr A region since 2012 October on roughly a bi-monthly interval, each for two hours, cycling through eight observing bands at their default continuum frequencies, using 2 GHz of bandwidth. The data from the monitoring program are publicly available through the NRAO data archive immediately after observing has completed, and the flux densities are published by NRAO staff as soon as the data are reduced. The cumulative results of the monitoring effort are posted on the service observing web page https://science.nrao.edu/science/service-observing and so far do not indicate a significant brightening of the emission from the direction of Sgr A* over the period 2012 October to 2013 September, within the calibration uncertainties.