Conference proceeding
HST Pa alpha Survey of the Galactic Center - Seeking the Missing Young Stellar Populations within the Galactic Center
GALACTIC CENTER: A WINDOW TO THE NUCLEAR ENVIRONMENT OF DISK GALAXIES, Vol.439, p.104
Astronomical Society of the Pacific Conference Series
01/01/2011
Abstract
We present preliminary results of our HST Pa alpha survey of the Galactic Center (GC), which maps the central 0.65x0.25 degrees around Sgr A*. This survey provides us with a more complete inventory of massive stars within the GC, compared to previous observations. We find 152 Pa alpha emitting sources, which are evolved massive stars. Half of them are located outside of three young massive star clusters near Sgr A*. The spatial distribution of these field sources suggests that they are within less massive star clusters/groups, compared to the three massive ones. Our Pa alpha mosaic not only resolves previously well-known large-scale filaments into fine structures, but also reveals many new extended objects, such as bow shocks and H II regions. In particular, we find two regions with large-scale Pa alpha diffuse emission and tells of Pa alpha emitting sources in the negative Galactic longitude suggesting recent star formation activities, which were not known previously. Furthermore, in our survey, we detect million stars, most of which are red giants or AGB stars. Comparisons of similar to 0.6 the magnitude distribution in 1.90 mu m and those from the stellar evolutionary tracks with different star formation histories suggest an episode of star formation process about 350 Myr ago in the GC
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- HST Pa alpha Survey of the Galactic Center - Seeking the Missing Young Stellar Populations within the Galactic Center
- Creators
- H. Dong - Univ Massachusetts, Dept Astron, Amherst, MA 01003 USAQ. D. Wang - Univ Massachusetts, Dept Astron, Amherst, MA 01003 USAA. Cotera - Search for Extraterrestrial IntelligenceS. Stolovy - California Institute of TechnologyM. R. Morris - Univ Calif Los Angeles, Dept Phys & Astron, Los Angeles, CA USAJ. Mauerhan - California Institute of TechnologyE. A. Mills - Univ Calif Los Angeles, Dept Phys & Astron, Los Angeles, CA USAG. Schneider - University of ArizonaC. Lang - University of Iowa
- Contributors
- M R Morris (Editor)Q D Wang (Editor)F Yuan (Editor)
- Resource Type
- Conference proceeding
- Publication Details
- GALACTIC CENTER: A WINDOW TO THE NUCLEAR ENVIRONMENT OF DISK GALAXIES, Vol.439, p.104
- Publisher
- Astronomical Soc Pacific
- Series
- Astronomical Society of the Pacific Conference Series
- Number of pages
- 3
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 01/01/2011
- Academic Unit
- Physics and Astronomy; Liberal Arts and Science Admin
- Record Identifier
- 9984442015702771
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