TAPIR Seminar

Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, represents a unique laboratory for studying low-luminosity active galactic nuclei across a range of dynamical scales due to its proximity and the corresponding wealth of observational data.  Here I present 3D simulations that track accretion from the winds of the 30 Wolf-Rayet stars orbiting at ~ parsec scales all the way down to a few hundred Schwarzschild radii of the central black hole.  The focus of my talk will be on the resulting flow structure at the innermost radii and the implications for the horizon-scale, general relativistic mageneto-hydrodynamic (GRMHD) simulations that are often used to interpret the multi-frequency emission of Sgr A*.  If time permits, I will also describe ongoing follow-up work that actually performs these GRMHD simulations with initial/boundary conditions inspired by our results.