Cosmos Seminar
Jun
5
2025
Jun
5
2025
Description
Chemical characterization of the Galactic Center
The Galactic Center is a unique environment characterized by extremely high gas densities, strong magnetic fields, and significant turbulence, with large gas inflows channeled by the bar over time. A massive and dense Nuclear Star Cluster (NSC) surrounds the supermassive black hole at its core. The NSC likely plays a critical role in the formation and evolution of the Milky Way, as suggested by the general scaling relations between the masses, densities, and stellar populations of extragalactic nuclear star clusters and their host galaxies. Abundance trends as a function of metallicity for different stellar populations in the Galactic Center can provide valuable new insights, complementing studies of dynamics, kinematics, star formation histories, and metallicity distributions. Since various elements trace distinct nucleosynthetic channels with unique evolutionary timescales, these trends can vary based on factors such as the star formation rate and gas inflow, revealing differences between stellar populations. Here, I will discuss how we are now, for the first time, able to measure abundances for stars in the Galactic Center, with the ultimate goal of achieving a chemical census of the NSC by measuring 22 elements. This work has been made possible through high-resolution spectroscopic observations in the H and K bands using the IGRINS spectrometer on the Gemini South telescope.
Location
PMA 15.216B and online
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