Kinematic of stars in Galactic center

The measurements were derived from a combination of speckle and laser guide star adaptive optics imaging and integral field spectroscopy from the Keck telescopes. Compared to earlier disk studies, the most important kinematic measurement improvement is in the precision of the accelerations in the plane of the sky, which have a factor of six smaller uncertainties ({sigma}~10{mu}as/yr2).

We have also added the first radial velocity measurements for eight young stars, increasing the sample at the largest radii (6''-12'') by 25%. We derive the ensemble properties of the observed stars using Monte Carlo simulations of mock data. There is one highly significant kinematic feature (~20{sigma}), corresponding to the well-known clockwise disk, and no significant feature is detected at the location of the previously claimed counterclockwise disk.