We study the disk-halo interaction, in the context of orbits and Giant Molecular loops (GMLs) in the Galactic center (GC) region. From a large scale survey of the central kpc of the Galaxy, in SiO J = (2 − 1), HCO+J = (1 − 0) and H13CO+J = (1 − 0) molecular emission, we identify shock regions traced by the enhancement of the SiO. These positions were studied using the 12C/13C isotopic ratio to trace gas accretion/ejection. We found a systematically higher 12C/13C isotopic ratio (> 40) toward the GMLs and the x1 orbits than for the GC standard molecular clouds (20–25). The high isotopic ratios are consistent with the accretion of the gas from the halo and from the outskirts of the Galactic disk. From multi-transitional observations of NH3, we derive two kinetic temperature regimes (one warm at ∼150 K and one cold at ∼40 K) for all the positions, except for the GMLs positions where only the warm component is present. The fractional abundances derived from the different molecules support the shock origin for the heating mechanism in the GC. We also present a detailed study of one molecular cloud placed in the foot points of two giant molecular loops, where two of the previously selected positions are placed. Using the 22m Mopra telescope we mapped the molecular cloud M − 3.8 + 0.9 in 3-mm molecular lines. The data show structures at small scale in SiO emission, with narrower line profiles than those of, e.g, HCO+ or HCN, which indicate that the shocks are dynamically confined. The data also show clear differences between different molecular tracers, e.g., between the SiO and HCO+ emission, which would indicate differences in the physical properties and chemistry within the cloud.

The MALT90 survey targets more than 2000 high-mass star-forming clumps in the Galactic plane obtaining small maps around each of them, in 16 molecular lines at 90 GHz. By observing several thousand high-mass star forming clumps MALT90 aims to characterize their global chemical and physical evolution. Here we summarize the survey parameters and show examples of the MALT90 data toward three clumps in the central molecular zone.

We suggest a new formation mechanism for the inclined, sub-parsec scale and counterrotating stellar disks observed around the central black hole in the Milky Way Galactic center. The simulation of a single molecular cloud crashing into a circumnuclear ring of gas leads to the inflow of multiple streams of gas towards the central parsec region. The time delayed arrival of those streams forms multiple, sub-parsec scale accretion disks, with angular momentum depending on the ratio of cloud and circumnuclear ring material. These accretion disks could then be the progenitors which fragmented into the observed stellar disks. A similar event might have also led to the creation of the so-called minispiral in the Galactic center.

We present results from a high-resolution wide-field imaging observation of the central molecular zone (CMZ) in H13CO+J = (1 − 0) and SiO v=0, J = (2−1) emission lines by using the Nobeyama 45-m telescope in order to depict the high-density molecular gas mass distribution and explore molecular gas affected by interstellar shocks. We found a candidate for ongoing cloud-cloud collision in the Sgr B2 complex. This is identified as a hollow paraboloid-like structure in the l−b−v data cube of both emission lines. The central part of the feature is denser and warmer than the outer envelope and contains a vast amount of shocked molecular gas. These properties are consistent with those expected from simulations of cloud-cloud collisions in the CMZ.

Recently we conducted a mini-survey towards a sample of six massive clouds with surface density >1024 cm−2 in the central molecular zone (CMZ) of the Milky Way, with the SMA at 280 GHz in the compact array and at 230 GHz in the compact/subcompact arrays. The data reveal compact dust continuum peaks, some of which are also associated with organic molecular lines and thermal SiO emission. The subcompact array data helps recover more structures, e.g. the regularly spaced, well-aligned continuum fragments in the 20 km s−1 cloud. Shock tracers such as SiO are found in all the clouds. Our observations suggest potential protostellar origin for some of the dust continuum peaks in these regions.

We carried out large–scale (4 × 2 degree) CO multi–line observations toward the central molecular zone (CMZ) in the Galactic center (GC) with the NANTEN2 4m telescope and mapped several diffuse molecular features located at relatively high Galactic latitudes above 0°.6. These high–latitude features are composed of diffuse molecular halo gas and molecular filaments according to their morphological aspects. Their high velocities and high intensity ratios between 12CO J = (2−1) and J = (1−0) clearly indicate their location in the GC, and their total mass amount to ∼10% of that of the CMZ. We discuss that magnetic field is a possible mechanism of these high–latitude molecular features lifting up toward high galactic latitude.

We present a mid-infrared 3D view of the central parsec using ISAAC spectrograph (ESO/VLT) with its spectroscopic mode. We mapped the central parsec in L- and M-bands by using 27 and 21 slit positions, respectively, that allowed us to build two data cubes of the region in these spectral domains. We also use an original method to distinguish the contribution of the foreground extinction to the absorbed spectra from that of the local extinction in both wavelength ranges. We find that there are residual water and CO ices in the central parsec as well as hydrocarbons and gaseous CO implying very low temperatures of the order of tens of Kelvin in the local environment of Sgr A*.

High-velocity compact clouds (HVCCs) are a population of molecular clouds which have compact appearance (d < 10 pc) and large velocity width (Δ V > 50 km s−1), and are found in the central molecular zone of our Galaxy. We performed a 3 mm band line survey toward CO−0.40−0.22, a spatially unresolved HVCC with an extremely large velocity width (Δ V ≃ 90 km s−1), using the Mopra 22 m telescope. We surveyed the frequency range between 76 GHz and 116 GHz with a 0.27 MHz frequency resolution. We detect at least 54 lines from 32 molecules. Many line profiles show a prominent peak at vLSR ∼ 70 km s−1 with very large velocity width, indicating they are emitted by the HVCC. Detections of largish molecules are indicative of non-equilibrium chemistry. We extracted some prominent lines based on velocity structure, intensity ratios, and PCA analyses. Shock diagnostic lines (SiO, SO, CH3OH, HNCO) and dense gas probes (HCN, HCO+) appear to be prominent. Excitation analysis of CH3OH lines show an enhancement in Trot in the negative high-velocity end of the profile. These results suggest that CO−0.40−0.22 has experienced a shock, acceleration, compression, and heating in the recent past.

Sgr B2 is an active high mass star forming region in the Galactic center and the pre-eminent interstellar source of organic chemistry. Newly available broad bandwidth radio interferometry data enables a spatially resolved study of the chemical environments within the Sgr B2(N) core. We present selections from a 30 - 50 GHz spectral line survey conducted with the ATCA.

In this contribution, we briefly describe how an observed mid-infrared (5.5-14 μm) spectrum can be used to trace key physical conditions along a given line of sight, such as the UV radiation field, the ionization parameter and the dust column density. These parameters are often difficult to determine independently from PDR models. The PAHTAT toolbox offers the opportunity to analyze mid-IR spectra using a limited number of parameters, that are associated with the physical properties of the dust and gas being observed.

The central parsec of our Galaxy hosts not only a supermassive black hole, but also a large population of young stars (age <6 Myr) whose presence is puzzling given how inhospitable the region is for star formation. The strong tidal forces require gas densities many orders of magnitude higher than is found in typical molecular clouds. Kinematic observations of this young nuclear cluster show complex structures, including a well-defined inner disk, but also a substantial off-disk population. Spectroscopic and photometric measurements indicate the initial mass function (IMF) differs significantly from the canonical IMF found in the solar neighborhood. These observations have led to a number of proposed star formation scenarios, such as an infalling massive star cluster, a single infalling molecular cloud, or cloud-cloud collisions. I will review recent works on the young stars in the central parsec and discuss connections with young nuclear star clusters in other galaxies, such as M31, and with star formation in the larger central molecular zone.

We summarize here our recent findings from near-infrared spectroscopy and 1 mm line and continuum observations of a recently identified extended green object (EGO) in Sgr C, whose observational characteristics suggest early-stage massive star formation is taking place. Located on the outskirts of the massive evolved Hii region associated with Sgr C in the Western central molecular zone (CMZ), the EGO measures ∼10″ (0.4 pc at 8.5 kpc). We confirm that early-stage star formation is taking place on the periphery of the Sgr C Hii region. The data show clear detections of two protostellar cores and several knots of H2 and Brackett γ emission alongside a previously detected compact radio source. We calculate the cores' joint mass to be ∼103 M⊙, with column densities of 1-2 × 1024 cm−2. The host molecular clouds mass is approximately 105 M⊙. Despite these favorable conditions, the cloud is curiously devoid of any further star formation, making it comparable to other remarkably quiescent clouds, such as G0.253 in the Eastern CMZ.

Within the central 10 pc of our Galaxy lies a dense cluster of stars, the nuclear star cluster, forming a distinct component of our Galaxy. Nuclear star clusters are common objects and are detected in ∼75% of nearby galaxies. It is, however, not fully understood how nuclear clusters form. Because the Milky Way nuclear star cluster is at a distance of only 8 kpc, we can spatially resolve its stellar populations and kinematics much better than in external galaxies. This makes the Milky Way nuclear star cluster a reference object for understanding the structure and assembly history of all nuclear star clusters.

We have obtained an unparalleled data set using the near-infrared long-slit spectrograph ISAAC (VLT) in a novel drift-scan technique to construct an integral-field spectroscopic map of the central ∼10 × 8 pc of our Galaxy. To complement our data set we also observed fields out to a distance of ∼19 pc along the Galactic plane to disentangle the influence of the nuclear stellar disk.

From this data set we extract a stellar kinematic map using the CO bandheads and an emission line kinematic map using H2 emission lines. Using the stellar kinematics, we set up a kinematic model for the Milky Way nuclear star cluster to derive its mass and constrain the central Galactic potential. Because the black hole mass in the Milky Way is precisely known, this kinematic data set will also serve as a benchmark for testing black hole mass modeling techniques used in external galaxies.

Nuclear star clusters are unambiguously detected in about 50–70% of spiral and spheroidal galaxies. They have typical half-light radii of 2–5 pc, dynamical mass ranging from 106 – 107 M⊙, are brighter than globular clusters, and obey similar scaling relations with host galaxies as supermassive black holes. The nuclear stellar cluster (NSC) which surrounds Sgr A*, the SMBH at the center of our galaxy, is the nearest nuclear cluster to us, and can be resolved to scales of milliparsecs. The strong and highly variable extinction towards the Galactic center makes it very hard to infer the intrinsic properties of the NSC (structure and size). We attempt a new way to infer its properties by using Spitzer MIR images in a wavelength range 3–8 μm where the extinction is at a minimum, and the NSC clearly stands out as a separate structure. We present results from our analysis, including extinction-corrected images and surface brightness profiles of the central few hundred parsecs of the Milky Way.

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 Hubble/NICMOS survey of the Galactic center, we have identified 180 Paschen-α 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.

By means of direct numerical N-body modeling, we investigate the orbital evolution of an initially thin, central mass dominated stellar disk. We include the perturbative gravitational influence of an extended spherically symmetric star cluster and the mutual gravitational interaction of the stars within the disk. Our results show that the two-body relaxation of the disk leads to significant changes of its radial density profile. In particular, the disk naturally evolves, for a variety of initial configurations, a similar broken power-law surface density profile. Hence, it appears that the single power-law surface density profile ∝R−2 suggested by various authors to describe the young stellar disk observed in the Sgr A* region does not match theoretical expectations.

The center of our Galaxy is home to a massive black hole, Sgr A*, and a nuclear star cluster containing stellar populations of various ages. While the late type stars may be too old to have retained memory of their initial orbital configuration, and hence formation mechanism, the kinematics of the early type stars should reflect their original distribution. In this contribution we present a new statistic which uses directly-observable kinematic stellar data to infer orbital parameters for stellar populations, and is capable of distinguishing between different origin scenarios. We use it on a population of B-stars in the Galactic center that extends out to large radii (∼0.5 pc) from the massive black hole. We find that the high K-magnitude population (≲15 M⊙) form an eccentric distribution, suggestive of a Hills binary-disruption origin.

We present initial results of a study that has more than doubled the time baseline for astrometric measurements of faint stars orbiting the supermassive black hole (SMBH) at the Galactic center. The advent of adaptive optics has enabled stars as faint as K = 19 mag to be tracked at 50 mas resolution for the last decade. While similar resolution images exist from the prior decade, they were obtained from speckle imaging data analyzed with the technique of shift-and-add, which limited detections to stars brighter than K = 16 mag. By improving the speckle data analysis technique with speckle holography and using prior orbital knowledge, we are now able to track stars as faint as ∼18 mag at 50 mas resolution through the early Keck speckle data sets (1995-2005). This methodology has already led to the detection of two short-period stars never previously seen in speckle images, such that our data now spans their full orbits. We can now better constrain the orbital parameters of all stars in the intriguing “S-star cluster,” which will ultimately give us insight into the origin of these stars and be used to probe the curvature of space-time in the unexplored regime near a SMBH.

The innermost parsec around Sgr A* has been found to play host to two disks or streamers of O and W-R stars. They are misaligned by an angle approaching 90°. That the stars are approximately coeval indicates that they formed in the same event rather than independently. We have performed smoothed particle hydrodynamic simulations of the infall of a single prolate cloud towards a massive black hole. As the cloud is disrupted, the large spread in angular momentum can, if conditions allow, lead to the creation of misaligned gas disks. In turn, stars may form within those disks. We are now investigating the origins of these clouds in the Galactic center (GC) region.

Here we present the fundamental properties of the nuclear cluster of the Milky Way. First, we derive its structural properties by constructing a density map of the central 1000″ using extinction-corrected star counts. We can describe the data with a two-component model built from Sersic profiles. The inner nearly spherical component is the nuclear cluster. The outer, strongly flattened component can be identified with the stellar component of the circumnuclear zone. Second, we enlarge the radius inside which detailed dynamics are available from 1 pc to 4 pc. We use more than 10000 individual proper motions and more than 2700 radial velocities. We determine the cluster mass by means of isotropic spherical Jeans modeling. We get a nuclear cluster mass within 100″ of M100″=(6.11 ± 0.52|fix R0±0.97|R0) × 106 M⊙, which corresponds to a total cluster mass of MNC=(13.08 ± 2.51|fix R0± 2.08|R0) × 106 M⊙. By combination of our mass with the flux we calculate M/L=0.50 ± 0.12 M⊙/L⊙,Ks for the central 100″. That is broadly consistent with a Chabrier IMF. With its mass and a luminosity of MKs=−15.30±0.26 the nuclear cluster is a bright and massive specimen with a typical size.