A deep submillimetre survey of the Galactic Centre
D. Pierce-Price(1), J. S. Richer(1), J. S. Greaves(2), W. S. Holland(2), T. Jenness(2), A. N. Lasenby(1), G. J. White(3,1), H. E. Matthews(4,2), D. Ward-Thompson(5), W. R. F. Dent(6), R. Zylka(7), P. Mezger(8), T. Hasegawa(9), T. Oka(10), A. Omont(11) and G. Gilmore(12)
(1) Cavendish Astrophysics, Cavendish Laboratory, Madingley Road, Cambridge, CB3 0HE, UK
(2) Joint Astronomy Centre, 660 N. A`oh\=ok\=u Place, Hilo, HI 96720
(3) Department of Physics, Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, UK
(4) National Research Council of Canada, Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics, 5071 West Saanich Road, Victoria, BC V9E 2E7, Canada
(5) Department of Physics and Astronomy, Cardiff University, 5 The Parade, Cardiff CF2 3YB, Wales, UK
(6) Astronomy Technology Centre, Blackford Hill, Edinburgh, EH9 3HJ, UK
(7) ITA, Universität Heidelberg, Tiergartenstrasse 15, D-69121 Heidelberg, Germany
(8) Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Auf dem Hügel 69, D-53121 Bonn, Germany
(9) Institute of Astronomy, University of Tokyo, 2-21-1 Osawa, Mitaka, Tokyo 181-0015, Japan (10) Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan (11) Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, CNRS, 98bis Boulevard Arago, F 75014 Paris, France (12) Institute of Astronomy,University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge. CB3 0HA, UK
Paper: ApJL, in press
Abstract:
We present first results from a submillimetre continuum survey of
the Galactic Centre `Central Molecular Zone' (CMZ), made with SCUBA
on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. SCUBA's scan-map mode has
allowed us to make extremely wide-field maps of thermal dust
emission with unprecedented speed and sensitivity. We also discuss
some issues related to the elimination of artefacts in scan-map
data. Our simultaneous 850/450 micron maps have a total size of
approximately 2.8*0.5\arcdeg (400*75 \pc) elongated
along the galactic plane. It covers the Sgr A region--including
Sgr A*, the circumnuclear disc, and the +20 km/s and
+50 km/s clouds;
the area around the Pistol; Sgr B2--the brightest feature on the
map; and at its Galactic Western and Eastern edges the Sgr C and
Sgr D regions. There are many striking features such as filaments
and shell-like structures, as well as point sources such as Sgr A*
itself. The total mass in the Central Molecular Zone is greater than
that revealed in previous optically-thin molecular line maps by a
factor of 3, and new details are revealed on scales down to
0.33 \pc across this 400 \pc-wide region.
Preprints available from the authors at dpip100@mrao.cam.ac.uk
,
or the raw TeX (no figures) if you click here.
Back to the gcnews home-page.