Mid-Infrared Mapping of the Galactic Center Region
Abstract
The center of the Milky Way is the closet laboratory for studying nuclear stellar clusters, star formation under extreme conditions, and the immediate surroundings of a supermassive black hole. This Galactic Centre (GC) harbors three massive clusters that allow studying cluster-based star formation history over the past 8 Myr. I will present our recent mid-infrared observations of the GC region obtained in 2010 and 2016 with the ground-based instrument VISIR on the ESO Very Large Telescope. The high-resolution multi-epoch N-band data cover a large field of view of selected regions within the central tens of parsecs of the Galaxy.Photometric and astrometric analysis of mosaics of the nuclear star cluster, the Quintuplet cluster, and regions in the Arched Filaments and the Sickle provide a census of faint compact (disk candidates, YSO's, and bow shocks) and diffuse emission sources in the mid-infrared. Their spatial distribution and concentration is studied and combined with existing multi-wavelength surveys in the infrared and the X-rays. The Galactic Center is one of the targets planned to be observed with the MIRI instrument GTO time aboard the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). This data is hence of importance in the preparation and interpretation of the upcoming MIRI observations.
- Publication:
-
42nd COSPAR Scientific Assembly
- Pub Date:
- July 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018cosp...42E2930S