Massive Young Stellar Objects in the Galactic Center. II. Seeing Through the Ice-rich Envelopes

Abstract

To study the demographics of interstellar ices in the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ) of the Milky Way, we obtain near-infrared spectra of $109$ red point sources using NASA IRTF/SpeX at Maunakea. We select the sample from near- and mid-infrared photometry, including $12$ objects in the previous paper of this series, to ensure that these sources trace a large amount of absorption through clouds in each line of sight. We find that most of the sample ($100$ objects) show CO band-head absorption at $2.3\mu$m, tagging them as red (super-) giants. Despite the photospheric signature, however, a fraction of the sample with $L$-band spectra ($9/82=0.11$) exhibit large H${}_2$O ice column densities ($N>2\times 10^{18}{\mathrm{cm}}^{-2}$), and six of them also reveal CH${}_3$OH ice absorption. As one of such objects is identified as a young stellar object (YSO) in our previous work, these ice-rich sight lines are likely associated with background stars in projection to an extended envelope of a YSO or a dense cloud core. The low frequency of such objects in the early stage of stellar evolution implies a low star-formation rate ($<0.02M_{\odot }$ yr${}^{-1}$), reinforcing the previous claim on the suppressed star-formation activity in the CMZ. Our data also indicate that the strong "shoulder" CO${}_2$ ice absorption at $15.4\mu$m observed in YSO candidates in the previous paper arises from CH${}_3$OH-rich ice grains having a large CO${}_2$ concentration [$N(\mathrm{C}{\mathrm{O}}_2)/N(\mathrm{C}{\mathrm{H}}_3\mathrm{OH})\approx 1/3$].

28 pages, 12 figures, 3 tables. Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal

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