Unveiling the Massive Stars in the Galactic Center

Abstract

We present our recent efforts to unveil and understand the origin of massive stars outside the three massive star clusters in the Galactic Center. From our HST/NICMOS survey of the Galactic Center, we have identified 180 Paschen-alpha emitting sources, most of which should be evolved massive stars with strong optically thin stellar winds. Recently, we obtained Gemini GNIRS/NIFS H- and K-band spectra of eight massive stars near the Arches cluster. From their radial velocities, ages and masses, we suggest that in our sample, two stars are previous members of the Arches cluster, while other two stars embedded in the H1/H2 HII regions formed in-situ.

4 pages 2 figures, IAU 303 proceedings

References in corpus (5)

• Giant Gamma-ray Bubbles from Fermi-LAT: AGN Activity or Bipolar Galactic Wind?
• Variations in the Galactic star formation rate and density thresholds for star formation
• The Fermi Bubbles: Giant, Multi-Billion-Year-Old Reservoirs of Galactic Center Cosmic Rays
• The Interplay between Star Formation and the Nuclear Environment of our Galaxy: Deep X-ray Observations of the Galactic Center Arches and Quintuplet Clusters
• A Multiwavelength Study of Evolved Massive Stars in the Galactic Center