Compact Young Clusters and the r^-2 Cusp near the Galactic Center

Details Compact Young Clusters and the r^-2 Cusp near the Galactic Center Compact Young Clusters and the r^-2 Cusp near the Galactic Center

Dec 1997

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1997hst..prop.7364f&link_type=abstract

HST Proposal ID #7364

Computer Science

Hst Proposal Id #7364 Young Stars And Circumstellar Material

Scientific paper

Recent research has indicated that the mode of star formation in the Galactic center environment may differ substantially from that occuring elsewhere in the Galaxy, leading to an initial mass function which could unusually favor massive stars, and to the formation of exceptionally massive star clusters. Over the lifetime of the Galaxy, this kind of star formation taking place in the central molecular zone has built up a population of stars which we have identified with the central r^-2 cusp of stars extending out to one or two hundred parsecs. We propose broad-band observations of two young, compact massive clusters near the Galactic Center, and of the r^-2 cusp population upon which those clusters are superimposed. With the data obtained, we will determine the slopes and lower mass cutoffs for the initial mass functions in these stellar groups by comparing the observed stellar surface number density and the distribution in color-magnitude diagrams to our models. These will be the first such determinations for any population near the Galactic Center, and they will test whether the unusual Galactic Center environment impacts star formation in the ways which have been predicted. Ground-based techniques cannot overcome the effects of confusion in the Galactic Center, and NICMOS/HST provides the only platform for performing this project.

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