Publications (6)4.9 Total impact
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Article: Hubble Space Telescope Paschen α survey of the Galactic Centre: data reduction and products
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ABSTRACT: Our Hubble Space Telescope/Near-Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (HST/NICMOS) Paschen α survey of the Galactic Centre, first introduced by Wang et al., provides a uniform, panoramic, high-resolution map of stars and an ionized diffuse gas in the central 416 arcmin2 of the Galaxy. This survey was carried out with 144 HST orbits using two narrow-band filters at 1.87 and 1.90 μm in NICMOS Camera 3. In this paper, we describe in detail the data reduction and mosaicking procedures followed, including background level matching and astrometric corrections. We have detected ∼570 000 near-infrared (near-IR) sources using the ‘starfinder’ software and are able to quantify photometric uncertainties of the detections. The source detection limit varies across the survey field, but the typical 50 per cent completion limit is ∼17th magnitude (Vega system) in the 1.90 μm band. A comparison with the expected stellar magnitude distribution shows that these sources are primarily main-sequence massive stars (≳7 M⊙) and evolved lower mass stars at the distance of the Galactic Centre. In particular, the observed source magnitude distribution exhibits a prominent peak, which could represent the red clump (RC) stars within the Galactic Centre. The observed magnitude and colour of these RC stars support a steep extinction curve in the near-IR towards the Galactic Centre. The flux ratios of our detected sources in the two bands also allow for an adaptive and statistical estimate of extinction across the field. With the subtraction of the extinction-corrected continuum, we construct a net Paschen α emission map and identify a set of Paschen α emitting sources, which should mostly be evolved massive stars with strong stellar winds. The majority of the identified Paschen α point sources are located within the three known massive Galactic Centre stellar clusters. However, a significant fraction of our Paschen α emitting sources are located outside the clusters and may represent a new class of ‘field’ massive stars, many of which may have formed in isolation and/or in small groups. The maps and source catalogues presented here are available electronically.Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 09/2011; 417(1):114 - 135. · 4.90 Impact Factor -
Article: HST Paschen-alpha Survey of the Galactic Center: Data Reduction and Products
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ABSTRACT: Our HST/NICMOS Pa survey of the Galactic center (GC) provides a uniform, panoramic, high-resolution map of stars and ionized diffuse gas in the central 416 arcmin^2 of the Galaxy. This survey was carried out with 144 HST orbits using two narrow-band filters at 1.87 and 1.90 micron in NICMOS Camera 3. In this paper, we describe in detail the data reduction and mosaicking procedures followed, including background level matching and astrometric corrections. We have detected ~570,000 near-IR sources and are able to quantify photometric uncertainties of the detections. The source detection limit varies across the survey field but the typical 50% completion limit is ~17th mag (Vega System) in the 1.90 micron band. A comparison with the expected stellar magnitude distribution shows that these sources are primarily Main-Sequence massive stars (>7M) and evolved lower mass stars at the distance of the GC. In particular, the observed source magnitude distribution exhibits a prominent peak, which could represent the Red Clump stars within the GC. The observed magnitude and color of these RC stars support a steep extinction curve in the near-IR toward the GC. The flux ratios of our detected sources in the two bands also allow for an adaptive and statistical estimate of extinction across the field. With the subtraction of the extinction-corrected continuum, we construct a net Pa emission map and identify a set of Pa-emitting sources, which should mostly be evolved massive stars with strong stellar winds. The majority of the identified Pa point sources are located within the three known massive GC stellar clusters. However, a significant fraction of our Pa-emitting sources are located outside the clusters and may represent a new class of `field' massive stars, many of which may have formed in isolation and/or in small groups. The maps and source catalogues presented here are available electronically.05/2011; -
Article: Investigating The Star Formation Mode And History Within The Galactic Center (gc)
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ABSTRACT: Star formation in galactic nuclear is believed to be an important component of the `duty-cycle’ process in the theory of galaxy formation and evolution. However, the detailed mechanism of star formation activities within these extreme environments is still unclear. As the closest galactic nucleus, the center of our Milky Way is considered to be the best lab to study the star formation mode and history around a supermassive black hole. In this talk, I will present our HST/NICMOS Palpha survey of the Galactic Center, which maps the central 90*35 pc^2 with two narrow-band filters (F187N and F190N). The main products of our survey are a Palpha mosaic of the GC, a extinction map with the highest resolution to date and 0.6 million stars. 150 sources with extra emission in 1.87 micron have been identified. Considering their broad-band colors, while 10 could be foreground stars, most of them should be within the GC and are evolved massive stars with strong stellar wind. We empirically divide these sources into three groups, WN, WC and O If supergiants, according to their equivalent width in 1.87 micron and their intrinsic continuum intensity in 1.90 micron. We suggest that we identify nearly all of the WN stars within the GC and most of the WC stars, except for the ones which are embedded deeply within interstellar dust. One half of these sources are outside three young massive compact star clusters and distribute in isolation/small groups, representing local low-intensity star formation processes or dissolved old massive star clusters, due to the strong tidal force. The intrinsic luminosity distribution of these 150 sources suggests that there could be a continuous star formation process during the past 10 Myr.04/2011; -1:10807. -
Article: HST Palpha Survey of the Galactic Center -- Searching the missing young stellar populations within the Galactic Center
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ABSTRACT: We present preliminary results of our \hst Pa$\alpha$ survey of the Galactic Center (\gc), which maps the central 0.65$\times$0.25 degrees around Sgr A*. This survey provides us with a more complete inventory of massive stars within the \gc, compared to previous observations. We find 157 Pa$\alpha$ emitting sources, which are evolved massive stars. Half of them are located outside of three young massive star clusters near Sgr A*. The loosely spatial distribution of these field sources suggests that they are within less massive star clusters/groups, compared to the three massive ones. Our Pa$\alpha$ mosaic not only resolves previously well-known large-scale filaments into fine structures, but also reveals many new extended objects, such as bow shocks and H II regions. In particular, we find two regions with large-scale Pa$\alpha$ diffuse emission and tens of Pa$\alpha$ emitting sources in the negative Galactic longitude suggesting recent star formation activities, which were not known previously. Furthermore, in our survey, we detect $\sim$0.6 million stars, most of which are red giants or AGB stars. Comparisons of the magnitude distribution in 1.90 $\mu$m and those from the stellar evolutionary tracks with different star formation histories suggest an episode of star formation process about 350 Myr ago in the \gc . Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, Proceedings of the Galactic Center Workshop 2009, Shanghai02/2010; -
Article: HST/NICMOS Paschen-alpha Survey of the Galactic Center: Overview
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ABSTRACT: We have recently carried out the first wide-field hydrogen Paschen-alpha line imaging survey of the Galactic Center (GC), using the NICMOS instrument aboard the Hubble Space Telescope. The survey maps out a region of 2253 pc^2 around the central supermassive black hole (Sgr A*) in the 1.87 and 1.90 Micron narrow bands with a spatial resolution of 0.01 pc at a distance of 8 kpc. Here we present an overview of the observations, data reduction, preliminary results, and potential scientific implications, as well as a description of the rationale and design of the survey. We have produced mosaic maps of the Paschen-alpha line and continuum emission, giving an unprecedentedly high resolution and high sensitivity panoramic view of stars and photo-ionized gas in the nuclear environment of the Galaxy. We detect a significant number of previously undetected stars with Paschen-alpha in emission. They are most likely massive stars with strong winds, as confirmed by our initial follow-up spectroscopic observations. About half of the newly detected massive stars are found outside the known clusters (Arches, Quintuplet, and Central). Many previously known diffuse thermal features are now resolved into arrays of intriguingly fine linear filaments indicating a profound role of magnetic fields in sculpting the gas. The bright spiral-like Paschen-alpha emission around Sgr A* is seen to be well confined within the known dusty torus. In the directions roughly perpendicular to it, we further detect faint, diffuse Paschen-alpha emission features, which, like earlier radio images, suggest an outflow from the structure. In addition, we detect various compact Paschen-alpha nebulae, probably tracing the accretion and/or ejection of stars at various evolutionary stages. Comment: accepted for publication in MNRAS; a version of higher resolution images may be found at http://www.astro.umass.edu/~wqd/papers/hst/paper1.pdf11/2009; -
Article: HST/NICMOS Paschen-α Survey of the Galactic Centre: Overview
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ABSTRACT: We have recently carried out the first wide-field hydrogen Paschen-α line imaging survey of the Galactic Centre using the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) instrument aboard the Hubble Space Telescope. The survey maps out a region of 2253 pc^2 (416 arcmin^2) around the central supermassive black hole (Sgr A*) in the 1.87 and 1.90 μm narrow bands with a spatial resolution of ~0.01 pc (0.2 arcsec full width at half-maximum) at a distance of 8 kpc. Here, we present an overview of the observations, data reduction, preliminary results and potential scientific implications, as well as a description of the rationale and design of the survey. We have produced mosaic maps of the Paschen-α line and continuum emission, giving an unprecedentedly high-resolution and high-sensitivity panoramic view of stars and photoionized gas in the nuclear environment of the Galaxy. We detect a significant number of previously undetected stars with Paschen-α in emission. They are most likely massive stars with strong winds, as confirmed by our initial follow-up spectroscopic observations. About half of the newly detected massive stars are found outside the known clusters (Arches, Quintuplet and Central). Many previously known diffuse thermal features are now resolved into arrays of intriguingly fine linear filaments indicating a profound role of magnetic fields in sculpting the gas. The bright spiral-like Paschen-α emission around Sgr A* is seen to be well confined within the known dusty torus. In the directions roughly perpendicular to it, we further detect faint, diffuse Paschen-α emission features, which, like earlier radio images, suggest an outflow from the structure. In addition, we detect various compact Paschen-α nebulae, probably tracing the accretion and/or ejection of stars at various evolutionary stages. Multiwavelength comparisons together with follow-up observations are helping us to address such questions as where and how massive stars form, how stellar clusters are disrupted, how massive stars shape and heat the surrounding medium, how various phases of this medium are interspersed and how the supermassive black hole interacts with its environment.
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Institutions
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2009–2011
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The University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ, USA
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