Star Formation at the Galactic Center

Abstract

Molecular clouds at the Galactic center (GC) have environments considerably different from their disk counterparts. The GC may therefore provide important clues about how the environment affects star formation. Interestingly, while the inner 50 parsecs of our Galaxy include a remarkable population of high-mass stars, the initial mass function (IMF) appears to be consistent with a Salpeter slope down to ~ 1 solar mass. We show here that the loss of turbulent pressure due to ambipolar diffusion and the damping of Alfven and fast MHD waves can lead to the formation of dense condensations exceeding their Jeans limit. The fragmentation and subsequent collapse of these condensations is similar to the diffusion-driven protostellar collapse mechanism expected to occur within nearby "regular" molecular clouds. As such, a Salpeter IMF at the GC is not surprising, though the short dynamical timescales associated with the GC molecular clouds may help explain the lower star formation efficiency observed from this region.

Accepted for publication in PASP

References in corpus (3)

• The Nature of the Dense Core Population in the Pipe Nebula: Thermal Cores Under Pressure
• The Transition from Atomic to Molecular Hydrogen in Interstellar Clouds: 21cm Signature of the Evolution of Cold Atomic Hydrogen in Dense Clouds
• Conference Summary: The Cosmic Agitator - Magnetic Fields in the Galaxy

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Massive Young Stellar Objects in the Galactic Center. I. Spectroscopic Identification from Spitzer/IRS Observations
• X-ray and Radio Variability of M31*, The Andromeda Galaxy Nuclear Supermassive Black Hole
• Chemical evolution of the Galactic Center
• Near-infrared spectroscopic observations of massive young stellar object candidates in the Central Molecular Zone