High-velocity hot CO emission close to Sgr A*: Herschel/HIFI★ , ★★ submillimeter spectral survey toward Sgr A.

The properties of molecular gas, the fuel that forms stars, inside the cavity of the circumnuclear disk (CND) are not well constrained. We present results of a velocity-resolved submillimeter scan (~480 to 1250 GHz) and [C ii] 158 μm line observations carried out with Herschel/HIFI toward Sgr A*; these results are complemented by a ~2'×2' 12CO (J=3-2) map taken with the IRAM 30 m telescope at ~7″ resolution. We report the presence of high positive-velocity emission (up to about +300 km s-1) detected in the wings of 12CO J=5-4 to 10-9 lines. This wing component is also seen in H2O (11,0-10,1), a tracer of hot molecular gas; in [C ii]158 μm, an unambiguous tracer of UV radiation; but not in [C i] 492, 806 GHz. This first measurement of the high-velocity 12CO rotational ladder toward Sgr A* adds more evidence that hot molecular gas exists inside the cavity of the CND, relatively close to the supermassive black hole (< 1 pc). Observed by ALMA, this velocity range appears as a collection of 12CO (J=3-2) cloudlets lying in a very harsh environment that is pervaded by intense UV radiation fields, shocks, and affected by strong gravitational shears. We constrain the physical conditions of the high positive-velocity CO gas component by comparing with non-LTE excitation and radiative transfer models. We infer T k≃400 K to 2000 K for n H≃(0.2-1.0)·105 cm-3. These results point toward the important role of stellar UV radiation, but we show that radiative heating alone cannot explain the excitation of this ~10-60 M ⊙ component of hot molecular gas inside the central cavity. Instead, strongly irradiated shocks are promising candidates.