Journal ArticleDOI
Massive star formation near the Galactic center and the fate of the stellar remnants
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In this paper, it is argued that those stars which do form tend to be formed by an externally caused compression of their parent clouds rather than by spontaneous cloud collapse, and because of the particular characteristics of the interstellar medium near the Galactic center, it is likely that the initial mass function (IMF) favors more massive stars than that in the Galactic disk.Abstract:
Several points are made regarding massive stars, star formation, and stellar remnants in the Galactic center region, particularly the inner 1-10 parsecs. First, in light of the processes which act to inhibit or suppress star formation there, it is argued that those stars which do form tend to be formed by an externally caused compression of their parent clouds rather than by spontaneous cloud collapse. As a result of this, and because of the particular characteristics of the interstellar medium near the Galactic center, it is likely that the initial mass function (IMF) favors more massive stars than that in the Galactic disk, or at least that the lower mass cutoff of the Galactic center IMF is relatively largeread more
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Journal ArticleDOI
Monitoring stellar orbits around the Massive Black Hole in the Galactic Center
Stefan Gillessen,Frank Eisenhauer,Sascha Trippe,Tal Alexander,Reinhard Genzel,Fabrice Martins,Thomas Ott +6 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present the results of 16 years of monitoring stellar orbits around the massive black hole in the center of the Milky Way, using high-resolution near-infrared techniques.
Journal ArticleDOI
Measuring Distance and Properties of the Milky Way’s Central Supermassive Black Hole with Stellar Orbits
Andrea M. Ghez,Samir Salim,Nevin N. Weinberg,Nevin N. Weinberg,Jessica R. Lu,Tuan Do,J. K. Dunn,Keith Matthews,Mark Morris,S. Yelda,Eric E. Becklin,T. Kremenek,Milos Milosavljevic,J. Naiman,J. Naiman +14 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors reported new precision measurements of the properties of our Galaxy's supermassive black hole, based on astrometric and radial velocity (RV; 2000-2007) measurements from the W. M. Keck 10m telescopes.
Journal ArticleDOI
The galactic center massive black hole and nuclear star cluster
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present the current evidence from the analysis of the orbits of more than two dozen stars and from measurements of the size and motion of the central compact radio source, Sgr A*, that this radio source must be a massive black hole of about 4.4 \times 1e6 Msun, beyond any reasonable doubt.
Journal ArticleDOI
A Universal Stellar Initial Mass Function? A Critical Look at Variations
TL;DR: In this article, a review of reports of stellar initial mass function variations is presented, with a view toward whether other explanations are sufficient given the evidence, concluding that the vast majority were drawn from a universal system IMF: a power law of Salpeter index (Γ = 1.35) above a few solar masses, and a log normal or shallower power law (∆ ∼ 0.25) for lower mass stars.
Journal ArticleDOI
The galactic center environment
Mark Morris,E. Serabyn +1 more
TL;DR: The central half kiloparsec region of our Galaxy harbors a variety of phenomena unique to the central environment as mentioned in this paper, such as large densities, large velocity dispersions, high temperatures, and apparently strong magnetic fields.
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