Surface Brightness Profile of the Milky Way's Nuclear Star Cluster

Abstract

(abridged) In this paper we aim at determining the shape, size, and luminosity/mass of the Milky Way Nuclear Star Cluster (MWNSC). We use Spitzer/IRAC images at 3.6 and 4.5 micrometer, where interstellar extinction is at a minimum but the overall emission is still dominated by stars. We correct the 4.5 micrometer image for PAH emission with the help of the IRAC 8.0 micrometer map and for extinction with the help of a [3.6-4.5] colour map. We present an extinction map for the central ~300x200 pc^2 of the Milky Way, as well as a PAH-emission and extinction corrected image of the stellar emission, with a resolution of about 0.2 pc. We find that the MWNSC appears in projection intrinsically point-symmetric, that it is significantly flattened, with its major axis aligned along the Galactic Plane, and that it is centred on the black hole, Sagittarius A*. Its density follows the well known approximate rho~r^{-2}-law at distances of a few parsecs from Sagittarius A*, but may become as steep as rho~r^{-3} at projected radii around 5 pc. We derive a half light radius of 4.2+-0.4 pc, a total luminosity of L_MWNSC=(4.1+-0.4)x10^{7} L_Sun, and a mass of M_{MWNSC}=(2.5+-0.4)x10^{7} M_Sun. The overall properties of the MWNSC agree well with the ones of its extragalactic counterparts, which underlines its role as a template for these objects. Its flattening agrees well with its previously established rotation parallel to Galactic rotation and suggests that it has formed by accretion of material that fell in preferentially along the Galactic Plane. Our findings support the in situ growth scenario for nuclear clusters and emphasize the need to increase the complexity of theoretical models for their formation and for the interaction between their stars and the central black hole in order to include rotation, axisymmetry, and growth in recurrent episodes.

Final, accepted manuscript

References in corpus (12)

• The Two Young Star Disks in the Central Parsec of the Galaxy: Properties, Dynamics and Formation
• The ACS Virgo Cluster Survey. VIII. The Nuclei of Early-Type Galaxies
• High-resolution dark matter density profiles of THINGS dwarf galaxies: Correcting for non-circular motions
• The structure of the nuclear stellar cluster of the Milky Way
• The Coincidence of Nuclear Star Clusters and Active Galactic Nuclei
• Clues to Nuclear Star Cluster Formation from Edge-on Spirals
• Kinematics of the old stellar population at the Galactic Center
• Red giant stellar collisions in the Galactic Centre
• Point Sources from a Spitzer IRAC Survey of the Galactic Center
• The final-parsec problem in non-spherical galaxies revisited
• The Mid-Infrared Colors of the ISM and Extended Sources at the Galactic Center
• The Nuclear Cluster of the Milky Way: Total Mass and Luminosity

Cited by in corpus (137)

• The Galaxy in Context: Structural, Kinematic and Integrated Properties
• Formation and Evolution of Compact Object Binaries in AGN Disks
• Nuclear Star Clusters
• The old nuclear star cluster in the Milky Way: dynamics, mass, statistical parallax, and black hole mass
• Masses and Scaling Relations for Nuclear Star Clusters, and their Coexistence with Central Black Holes
• Galactic Rotation Curves vs. Ultra-Light Dark Matter: Implications of the Soliton -- Host Halo Relation
• Co-evolution of nuclear star clusters, massive black holes and their host galaxies
• Nuclear star clusters in 228 spiral galaxies in the HST/WFPC2 archive: catalogue and comparison to other stellar systems
• Greatly enhanced merger rates of compact-object binaries in non-spherical nuclear star clusters
• Large scale kinematics and dynamical modelling of the Milky Way nuclear star cluster
• Mass-gap Mergers in Active Galactic Nuclei
• Nearby Early-Type Galactic Nuclei at High Resolution: Dynamical Black Hole and Nuclear Star Cluster Mass Measurements
• Formation Rate of Extreme Mass Ratio Inspirals in Active Galactic Nuclei
• The impact of vector resonant relaxation on the evolution of binaries near a massive black hole: implications for gravitational wave sources
• Stellar-mass black holes in young massive and open stellar clusters IV: updated stellar-evolutionary and black hole spin models and comparisons with the LIGO-Virgo O1/O2 merger-event data
• The Milky Way's nuclear star cluster: Old, metal-rich, and cuspy
• The distribution of old stars around the Milky Way's central black hole I: Star counts
• The nuclear cluster of the Milky Way: Our primary testbed for the interaction of a dense star cluster with a massive black hole
• The Nuclear Cluster of the Milky Way: Total Mass and Luminosity (long version)
• KMOS view of the Galactic Centre - II. Metallicity distribution of late-type stars
• Simulations of the Milky Way's central molecular zone -- II. Star formation
• KMOS view of the Galactic Centre I. Young stars are centrally concentrated
• Improved Dynamical Constraints on the Mass of the central Black Hole in NGC 404
• On the distribution of stellar remnants around massive black holes: slow mass segregation, star cluster inspirals and correlated orbits
• The MEGaN project II. Gravitational waves from intermediate mass- and binary black holes around a supermassive black hole
• The Structure of Nuclear Star Clusters in Nearby Late-type Spiral Galaxies from Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 Imaging
• On the rotation of nuclear star clusters formed by cluster-inspirals
• GALACTICNUCLEUS: A high-angular-resolution JHKs imaging survey of the Galactic centre II. First data release of the catalogue and the most detailed CMDs of the GC
• A new Fokker-Planck approach for relaxation-driven evolution of galactic nuclei
• New constraints on the structure of the nuclear stellar cluster of the Milky Way from star counts and MIR imaging
• A deep view into the nucleus of the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy with MUSE. I. Data and stellar population characterization
• Evidence for intermediate polars as the origin of the Galactic Center hard X-ray emission
• Birth, life, and death of black hole binaries around supermassive black holes: dynamical evolution of gravitational wave sources
• The age of the Milky Way inner stellar spheroid from RR Lyrae population synthesis
• The Next Generation Fornax Survey (NGFS): IV. Mass and Age Bimodality of Nuclear Clusters in the Fornax Core Region
• Stellar population synthesis models between 2.5 and 5 μm based on the empirical IRTF stellar library
• The distribution of stars around the Milky Way's central black hole II: Diffuse light from sub-giants and dwarfs
• The Milky Way's nuclear stellar disc: A dynamically cool and metal-rich component formed from the Central Molecular Zone?
• Dissecting the properties of neutron star - black hole mergers originating in dense star clusters
• Detailed Abundances for the Old Population near the Galactic Center: I. Metallicity distribution of the Nuclear Star Cluster
• The inner two degrees of the Milky Way. Evidence of a chemical difference between the Galactic Center and the surrounding inner bulge stellar populations
• Old supernova dust factory revealed at the Galactic center
• Quiescent and active galactic nuclei as factories of merging compact objects in the era of gravitational-wave astronomy
• Jeans modelling of the Milky Way's nuclear stellar disc
• Detailed abundances in the Galactic center: Evidence of a metal-rich alpha-enhanced stellar population
• Joint constraints on the Galactic dark matter halo and Galactic Centre from hypervelocity stars
• The Star Formation History of the Milky Way's Nuclear Star Cluster
• A New Perspective of the Radio Bright Zone at The Galactic Center: Feedback from Nuclear Activities
• Asymmetric spatial distribution of sub-solar metallicity stars in the Milky Way nuclear star cluster
• Millisecond pulsar origin of the Galactic center excess and extended gamma-ray emission from Andromeda - a closer look
• What stellar orbit is needed to measure the spin of the Galactic center black hole from astrometric data?
• On the origin of a rotating metal-poor stellar population in the Milky Way Nuclear Cluster
• Gamma-ray and X-ray emission from the Galactic Centre: hints on the nuclear star cluster formation history
• GALACTICNUCLEUS: A high-angular-resolution JHKs imaging survey of the Galactic centre III. Evidence for wavelength dependence of the extinction curve in the near-infrared
• GALACTICNUCLEUS: A high-angular-resolution $JH{K}_s$ imaging survey of the Galactic centre. IV. Extinction maps and de-reddened photometry
• Isotropic-Nematic Phase Transitions in Gravitational Systems
• On Socially Distant Neighbors: Using Binaries to Constrain the Density of Objects in the Galactic Center
• Compact Radio Sources within 30" of Sgr A*: Proper Motions, Stellar Winds and the Accretion Rate onto Sgr A*
• Supermassive black holes coalescence mediated by massive perturbers: implications for gravitational waves emission and nuclear cluster formation
• Where intermediate-mass black holes could hide in the Galactic Centre: A full parameter study with the S2 orbit
• Non-thermal radiation from collisions of compact objects with intermediate scale jets in active galaxies
• Near-Infrared Variability Study of the Central 2.3 arcmin x 2.3 arcmin of the Galactic Centre II. Identification of RR Lyrae Stars in the Milky Way Nuclear Star Cluster
• Can supernova kicks trigger EMRIs in the Galactic Centre?
• The X-ray binary population in the Galactic Center revealed through multi-decade observations
• Compact-Object Mergers in the Galactic Center: Evolution in Triaxial Clusters
• Detailed abundance analysis of a metal-poor giant in the Galactic Center
• Probing the formation history of the nuclear star cluster at the Galactic Centre with millisecond pulsars
• NGC 7469 as seen by MEGARA: new results from high-resolution IFU spectroscopy
• A population of compact radio variables and transients in the radio bright zone at the Galactic center observed with the Jansky Very Large Array
• Colliding Winds in and around the Stellar Group IRS 13E at the Galactic Center
• Dust within the old nuclear star cluster in the Milky Way
• Formation of low-spinning 100 Msun black holes
• A proper motion catalogue for the Milky Way's nuclear stellar disc
• Photometric and Structural Parameters of Newly Discovered Nuclear Star Clusters in Local Volume Galaxies
• Study of the excess Fe XXV line emission in the central degrees of the Galactic centre using XMM-Newton data
• The formation history of our Galaxy's nuclear stellar disc constrained from HST observations of the Quintuplet field
• Forming circumnuclear disks and rings in galactic nuclei: a competition between supermassive black hole and nuclear star cluster
• Enhanced Line Signals from Annihilating Kaluza-Klein Dark Matter
• ALMA and VLA observations of emission from the environment of Sgr A*
• Stellar Populations in the Transition Region of Nuclear Star Cluster and Nuclear Stellar Disc
• First results from a large-scale proper motion study of the Galactic Centre
• A direct black hole mass measurement in a Little Red Dot at the Epoch of Reionization
• Close stellar encounters at the Galactic Centre I: The effect on the observed stellar populations
• Relaxation near supermassive black holes driven by nuclear spiral arms: anisotropic hypervelocity stars, S-stars and tidal disruption events
• Fluorine Abundances in the Galactic Nuclear Star Cluster
• PHANGS-JWST First Results: A combined HST and JWST analysis of the nuclear star cluster in NGC 628
• High-speed molecular cloudlets around the Galactic Center supermassive black hole
• Constraints on the Galactic Centre environment from Gaia hypervelocity stars II: The evolved population
• Measuring the Orbits of the Arches and Quintuplet Clusters using HST and Gaia: Exploring Scenarios for Star Formation Near the Galactic Center
• Dynamics of a Superdense Cluster of Black Holes and the Formation of the Galactic SMBH
• A first glimpse at the line-of-sight structure of the Milky Way's nuclear stellar disc
• Orbit-superposition models of discrete, incomplete stellar kinematics: application to the Galactic centre
• Detection of a dense group of hyper-compact radio sources in the central parsec of the Galaxy
• Spectroscopically Identified Intermediate Age Stars at 0.5 - 3 pc Distance from Sgr A*
• The RR Lyrae projected density distribution from the Galactic centre to the halo
• Multi-phase environment of compact galactic nuclei: the role of the Nuclear Star Cluster
• Distance to the Brick cloud using stellar kinematics
• Dynamical evolution of Milky Way globular clusters on the cosmological timescale I. Mass loss and interaction with the nuclear star cluster
• Smooth kinematic and metallicity gradients reveal that the Milky Way's nuclear star cluster and disc might be part of the same structure
• Supermassive Black Holes in Galactic Nuclei with Tidal Disruption of Stars: Paper II - Axisymmetric Nuclei
• Photometric Classification of Stars Around the Milky Way's Central Black Hole: I. Central Parsec
• Monte Carlo simulations of multiple populations in globular clusters: constraints on the initial size of the second generation from binary stars
• A spectroscopic map of the Galactic centre -- Observations and resolved stars
• Evolution of eccentric stellar disks around supermassive black holes: the complex disk disruption dynamics and the milliparsec stars
• The Milky Way like galaxy NGC 6384 and its nuclear star cluster at high NIR spatial resolution using LBT/ARGOS commissioning data
• A common origin for the circumnuclear disc and the nearby molecular clouds in the Galactic Centre
• Measuring the alpha-abundance of subsolar-metallicity stars in the Milky Way's central half-parsec: testing globular cluster and dwarf galaxy infall scenarios
• Electromagnetic signatures of strong-field gravity from accreting black holes
• Millisecond Pulsars in Dense Star Clusters: Evolution, Scaling Relations, and the Galactic-Center Gamma-ray Excess
• Tidal disruption of stellar clusters and their remnants' spatial distribution near the galactic center
• Dynamical mass distribution and velocity structure of the Galactic centre
• Searching for clues of past binary supermassive black hole mergers in nuclear star clusters
• Sculpting the Stellar Cusp in the Galactic Center
• Accretion of clumpy cold gas onto massive black holes binaries: the challenging formation of extended circumbinary structures
• Candidate Young Stellar Objects in the S-cluster: The Kinematic Analysis of a Sub-population of the Low-mass G-objects close to Sgr A*
• Probing the formation of planetesimals in the Galactic Centre using Sgr A* flares
• Binary mergers in the centers of galaxies: synergy between stellar flybys and tidal fields
• Constraining Ultra Light Dark Matter with the Galactic Nuclear Star Cluster
• Self-consistent Solutions of Evolving Nuclear Star Clusters with Two-Dimensional Monte-Carlo Dynamical Simulations
• Detecting hot stars in the Galactic centre with combined near- and mid-infrared photometry
• Galactic Center Minispiral: Interaction Modes of Neutron Stars
• Deformation of the Galactic Centre stellar cusp due to the gravity of a growing gas disc
• Co-evolution of Nuclear Star Clusters and Massive Black Holes: Extreme Mass-Ratio Inspirals
• The Near-Infrared Spectrum of the Nuclear Star Cluster: Looking Below the Tip of the Iceberg and Comparisons with Extragalactic Nuclei
• The Fate of Binary Stars Hosting Planets upon Interaction with Sgr A* Black hole
• Age and metallicity of the Milky Way's nuclear star cluster studied at 3 pc from Sagittarius A*
• Chemical analysis of the Milky Way's Nuclear Star Cluster: Evidence for a metallicity gradient
• Origin of X-ray and gamma-ray emission from the Galactic central region
• Oblique magnetic fields and the role of frame dragging
• The Galactic Center with Roman
• Smoluchowski Coagulation Equation and the Evolution of Primordial Black Hole Clusters
• Resolved nuclear kinematics link the formation and growth of nuclear star clusters with the evolution of their early and late-type hosts
• 3D CMZ V: A new orbital model of our Galaxy's Center, informed by data across the electromagnetic spectrum
• Distance and extinction to the Milky Way spiral arms along the Galactic centre line of sight
• X-ray emission of the Nuclear Stellar Disk as seen by SRG/ART-XC
• Self-consistent modelling of the Milky Way's Nuclear Stellar Disc
• Black Hole Survival Guide: Searching for Stars in the Galactic Center That Endure Partial Tidal Disruption