Statistical Challenges in Fitting Stellar Orbits around the Supermassive
  Black Hole at the Galactic Center
  Over two decades of astrometric and radial velocity data of short period
stars in the Galactic center have the potential to provide unprecedented tests
of General Relativity and insight into the astrophysics of supermassive black
holes. Fundamental to this is understanding the underlying statistical issues
of fitting stellar orbits. Unintended prior effects can obscure actual physical
effects from General Relativity and the underlying extended mass distribution.
At the heart of this is dealing with large parameter spaces inherent to multi
star fitting and ensuring acceptable coverage properties of the resulting
confidence intervals within the Bayesian framework. This proceeding will detail
some of the UCLA Galactic Center Group's analysis and work in addressing these
statistical issues.
