140 citations · 899 across the 43 of their papers we have counts for
46 papers
A Search For Stellar-mass Black Holes Via Astrometric Microlensing II: 2012-2015 Keck Candidates
Mace J. Huston, Jessica R. Lu, Casey Y. Lam +58
The Milky Way is expected to host 10 stellar-mass black holes with an uncertain binary fraction. The only proven method to detect isolated stellar mass black holes is gra…
Absolute Motion of the Infrared Counterpart to Sagittarius A* in the Gaia Celestial Reference Frame 3 and Limits on an Intermediate-mass Black Hole Companion
Rebecca A. Lewis-Merrill, Tuan Do, Matthew W. Hosek +9
We report the first proper motion and acceleration measurements of the infrared (IR) counterpart to Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*-IR), the supermassive black hole (SMBH) at the center of…
Black hole astrometric binaries in the Roman Galactic Bulge Time Domain Survey
Casey Y. Lam, Jessica R. Lu, Kareem El-Badry +6
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (Roman), NASA's next flagship mission, is currently scheduled to launch in August 2026. As part of its mission, Roman will conduct the Galacti…
Expanding the SPISEA Stellar Population Synthesis Software to the Substellar Regime
Caitlin Begbie, Rachel Street, Katarzyna Kruszynska +4
We present an extension of the SPISEA stellar population synthesis framework that adds brown dwarfs to the existing range of stellar mass objects, enabling physically consistent mo…
A Kinematic Study of Wolf-Rayet Stars at the Galactic Center I: Binary Candidates and Constraints on the Binary Fraction
Rory O. Bentley, Tuan Do, Andrea Ghez +13
We report the binary fraction of Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars within 0.5~pc of the Galactic center obtained through the longest time-baseline (1994-2024) kinematic study of this populatio…
IRS 9: The Case for a Dynamically-Ejected Star from the Galactic Center
Matthew Hosek, Tuan Do, Smadar Naoz +7
Measuring stellar motions at the Milky Way's Galactic center (GC) provides unique insight into the dynamical processes within galactic nuclei. We present proper motion measurements…
A multiwavelength study of the Galactic center black hole candidate MAXI J1744-294
Shifra Mandel, Kaya Mori, Paul A. Draghis +37
For the first time in nearly a decade, a bright transient was detected in the central parsec (pc) of the Galaxy. MAXI J1744-294, or -- as it was known in its previous life -- Swift…
The HST-Gaia Near-Infrared Astrometric Reference Frame near the Milky Way Galactic Center
Matthew W. Hosek, Tuan Do, Gregory D. Martinez +5
We present the first high-precision proper motion catalog, tied to the International Celestial Reference System (ICRS), of infrared astrometric reference stars within R 25"…
Assessing the Impact of Binary Systems on Microlensing Using SPISEA and PopSyCLE Population Simulations
Natasha S. Abrams, Jessica R. Lu, Casey Y. Lam +3
Gravitational microlensing provides a unique opportunity to probe the mass distribution of stars, black holes, and other objects in the Milky Way. Population simulations are necess…
Structure and Dynamics of the Young Massive Star Cluster Westerlund 1
Lingfeng Wei, Matthew W. Hosek, Jessica R. Lu +8
We present a structural analysis of the young massive star cluster Westerlund 1 (Wd 1). With multi-epoch Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations, we measure the proper motions of…
New Evidence for a Flux-independent Spectral Index of Sgr A* in the Near-infrared
Hadrien Paugnat, Tuan Do, Abhimat K. Gautam +11
In this work, we measure the spectral index of Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) between the (1.6 m) and (2.2 m) broadband filters in the near-infrared (NIR), sampling o…
The Galactic Center in Color: Measuring Extinction with High-Proper-Motion Stars
Z. Haggard, A. M. Ghez, S. Sakai +6
The Milky Way's central parsec is a highly extinguished region with a population of high-proper-motion stars. We have tracked 145 stars for 10 years at wavelengths between 1…
An Estimate of the Binary Star Fraction Among Young Stars at the Galactic Center: Possible Evidence of a Radial Dependence
Abhimat K. Gautam, Tuan Do, Andrea M. Ghez +8
We present the first estimate of the intrinsic binary fraction of young stars across the central 0.4 pc surrounding the supermassive black hole (SMBH) at the Milky Way Ga…
The JWST Galactic Center Survey -- A White Paper
Rainer Schoedel, Steve Longmore, Jonny Henshaw +111
The inner hundred parsecs of the Milky Way hosts the nearest supermassive black hole, largest reservoir of dense gas, greatest stellar density, hundreds of massive main and post ma…
Co-moving groups around massive stars in the Nuclear Stellar Disk
Á. Martínez-Arranz, R. Schödel, F. Nogueras-Lara +2
During the last 30 Myr the nuclear stellar disk in the Galactic center has been the most prolific star forming region of the Milky Way when averaged by volume. Remarkably, t…
Near-Infrared Flux Distribution of Sgr A* from 2005-2022: Evidence for an Enhanced Accretion Episode in 2019
Grant C. Weldon, Tuan Do, Gunther Witzel +10
Sgr A* is the variable electromagnetic source associated with accretion onto the Galactic center supermassive black hole. While the near-infrared (NIR) variability of Sgr A* was sh…
Roman CCS White Paper: Characterizing the Galactic population of isolated black holes
Casey Y. Lam, Natasha Abrams, Jeff Andrews +34
Although there are estimated to be 100 million isolated black holes (BHs) in the Milky Way, only one has been found so far, resulting in significant uncertainty about their propert…
The Galactic Center with Roman
Sean K. Terry, Matthew W. Hosek, Jessica R. Lu +31
We advocate for a Galactic center (GC) field to be added to the Galactic Bulge Time Domain Survey (GBTDS). The new field would yield high-cadence photometric and astrometric measur…
The formation history of our Galaxy's nuclear stellar disc constrained from HST observations of the Quintuplet field
R. Schoedel, F. Nogueras-Lara, M. Hosek +9
Until recently it was thought that the nuclear stellar disc at the centre of our Galaxy was formed via quasi-continuous star formation over billions of years. However, an analysis…
Evidence of a Decreased Binary Fraction for Massive Stars Within 20 Milliparsecs of the Supermassive Black Hole at the Galactic Center
Devin S. Chu, Tuan Do, Andrea Ghez +12
We present the results of the first systematic search for spectroscopic binaries within the central 2 x 3 arcsec around the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky W…
Stellar Populations in the Central 0.5 pc of Our Galaxy III: The Dynamical Sub-structures
Siyao Jia, Ningyuan Xu, Jessica R. Lu +12
We measure the 3D kinematic structures of the young stars within the central 0.5 parsec of our Galactic Center using the 10 m telescopes of the W.~M.~Keck Observatory over a time s…
Spin vectors in the Koronis family: IV. Completing the sample of its largest members after 35 years of study
Stephen M. Slivan, Matthew Hosek, Max Kurzner +17
An observational study of Koronis family members' spin properties was undertaken with two primary objectives: to reduce selection biases for object rotation period and lightcurve a…
The Star Formation History of the Milky Way's Nuclear Star Cluster
Zhuo Chen, Tuan Do, Andrea M. Ghez +6
We report the first star formation history study of the Milky Way's nuclear star cluster (NSC) that includes observational constraints from a large sample of stellar metallicity me…
The Impact of Initial-Final Mass Relations on Black Hole Microlensing
Sam Rose, Casey Y. Lam, Jessica R. Lu +5
Uncertainty in the initial-final mass relation (IFMR) has long been a problem in understanding the final stages of massive star evolution. One of the major challenges of constraini…