A Legacy Study of Stellar Lifecycles in the Galactic Center
Franz Bauer (Columbia University)
We report on a multi-wavelength project to study the life-cycles of massive stars in the central 300 pc of the Galaxy. The centerpiece of the project is 680 ks of deep (40 ks each) Chandra observations, which we compare to radio maps at 90, 20, and 1.4 cm taken with the VLA; mid-infrared images at 8.0, 5.8, 4.5 and 3.6 micron taken with Spitzer; and J,H,K images from the SIRIUS camera on the IRSF. The images reveal a wide variety of diffuse phenomena, including iron fluorescence from molecular clouds that have reflected past outbursts of the supermassive black hole Sgr A*, thermal X-ray emission from young supernova remnants, non-thermal X-ray emission from several of the mysterious radio-emitting filaments, and shocks produced by stellar sources at the centers of HII regions. We also report the results of a campaign to identify the infrared counterparts to X-ray sources, using spectra taken with a number of 3-5 m class telescopes. These spectra have revealed several dozen young, massive colliding-wind binaries and high-mass X-ray binaries.