
In this Letter, we demonstrate that short-period stars orbiting around the supermassive black hole in our Galactic Center can successfully be used to probe the gravitational theory in a strong regime. We use 19 years of observations of the two best measured short-period stars orbiting our Galactic Center to constrain a hypothetical fifth force that arises in various scenarios motivated by the development of a unification theory or in some models of dark matter and dark energy. No deviation from General Relativity is reported and the fifth force strength is restricted to an upper 95% confidence limit of $\left|α\right| < 0.016$ at a length scale of $λ=$ 150 astronomical units. We also derive a 95% confidence upper limit on a linear drift of the argument of periastron of the short-period star S0-2 of $\left|\dot ω_\textrm{S0-2} \right|< 1.6 \times 10^{-3}$ rad/yr, which can be used to constrain various gravitational and astrophysical theories. This analysis provides the first fully self-consistent test of the gravitational theory using orbital dynamic in a strong gravitational regime, that of a supermassive black hole. A sensitivity analysis for future measurements is also presented.
8 pages, 3 figures, version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Letters. Original title "Seeking a fifth force with..." changed upon request of the PRL editors
General Physics, astro-ph.GA, gr-qc, FOS: Physical sciences, General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc), 530, Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies, 520, Mathematical Sciences, General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology, Engineering, Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA), Physical Sciences
General Physics, astro-ph.GA, gr-qc, FOS: Physical sciences, General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc), 530, Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies, 520, Mathematical Sciences, General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology, Engineering, Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA), Physical Sciences
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