Near Infrared Survey of the Nuclear Regions of the Milky Way

In the recent past there have been several NIR surveys,e.g.DENIS (Epchtein et al 1997), 2MASS (Skrutskie et al 1997).Due to poor spatial resolution these surveys suffer from confusion and hence lack in depth in the high number density nuclear regions of the Galaxy. Using DENIS data, Schultheis et al (1999) prepared a map of the interstellar extinction for the inner Galactic Bulge and reported extinction > 25 with a clumpy, inhomogeneous nature. However, the J band data in DENIS is incomplete in this region of high extinction. A large number of Ks sources do not have counterparts in I & J in DENIS. The situation has not improved much with the availability of 2MASS data. To overcome these problems, and to gain a better understanding of the distribution of stellar populations in the nuclear bulge region, we carried out a deep imaging survey of this region in J, H & Ks bands with particular emphasis on the fields covered by the ISOGAL survey at 7 and 15 micron (Omont et al. 2003). The deep imaging survey in J, H & Ks bands was carried out using IRSF telescope, SAAO, Sutherland during June-July 2002. This survey is about 2.5 magnitude deeper compared to DENIS and 2MASS and is able to detect stars of the red clump at a distance of the Galactic center. The survey covers the inner ∼300 pc of the bulge region within |l|∼ 1.5 deg, |b| ∼ 0.5 deg plus a few directions at higer galactic latitude on the minor axis. In the present paper a comparative study with earlier surveys is made and some of the interesting results obtained so far will be presented. In the present paper a comparative study with earlier surveys is made and some of the interesting results obtained so far will be presented.