Massive Star Formation in the Galactic Center

Abstract

The Galactic center is a hotbed of star formation activity, containing the most massive star formation site and three of the most massive young star clusters in the Galaxy. Given such a rich environment, it contains more stars with initial masses above 100 \Msun than anywhere else in the Galaxy. This review concerns the young stellar population in the Galactic center, as it relates to massive star formation in the region. The sample includes stars in the three massive stellar clusters, the population of younger stars in the present sites of star formation, the stars surrounding the central black hole, and the bulk of the stars in the field population. The fossil record in the Galactic center suggests that the recently formed massive stars there are present-day examples of similar populations that must have been formed through star formation episodes stretching back to the time period when the Galaxy was forming.

Full resolution versions of the above images are available at http://www.cis.rit.edu/~dffpci/private/papers/stsci06/

Cited by in corpus (7)

• The impact of mass-loss on the evolution and pre-supernova properties of red supergiants
• Searching for pulsars in the Galactic Centre at 3 and 2 mm
• SOFIA/FORCAST Galactic Center Legacy Survey: Overview
• The fate of supernova remnants near quiescent supermassive black holes
• The contribution of young core-collapse supernova remnants to the X-ray emission near quiescent supermassive black holes
• Multiwavelength identification of millisecond pulsar candidates in the Galactic bulge
• The Fate of Binary Stars Hosting Planets upon Interaction with Sgr A* Black hole