Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
May 2011
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011aas...21810807d&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #218, #108.07; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 43, 2011
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
Star formation in galactic nuclear is believed to be an important component of the `duty-cycle’ process in the theory of galaxy formation and evolution. However, the detailed mechanism of star formation activities within these extreme environments is still unclear. As the closest galactic nucleus, the center of our Milky Way is considered to be the best lab to study the star formation mode and history around a supermassive black hole. In this talk, I will present our HST/NICMOS Palpha survey of the Galactic Center, which maps the central 90*35 pc^2 with two narrow-band filters (F187N and F190N). The main products of our survey are a Palpha mosaic of the GC, a extinction map with the highest resolution to date and 0.6 million stars. 150 sources with extra emission in 1.87 micron have been identified. Considering their broad-band colors, while 10 could be foreground stars, most of them should be within the GC and are evolved massive stars with strong stellar wind. We empirically divide these sources into three groups, WN, WC and O If supergiants, according to their equivalent width in 1.87 micron and their intrinsic continuum intensity in 1.90 micron. We suggest that we identify nearly all of the WN stars within the GC and most of the WC stars, except for the ones which are embedded deeply within interstellar dust. One half of these sources are outside three young massive compact star clusters and distribute in isolation/small groups, representing local low-intensity star formation processes or dissolved old massive star clusters, due to the strong tidal force. The intrinsic luminosity distribution of these 150 sources suggests that there could be a continuous star formation process during the past 10 Myr.
Calzetti Daniela
Cotera Angela
Dong Hui
Lang Christian
Mauerhan Jon
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