Complex small-scale structure in the infrared extinction towards the Galactic Centre

Andrew J. Gosling, Katherine M. Blundell, Reba Bandyopadhyay


(1) University of Oxford, Department of Physics, Keble Road, Oxford, OX1 3RH, U.K.

Paper: ApJL accepted, Feb 2006

EPrint Server: astro-ph/0602410


Abstract:

A high level of complex structure, or ``granularity'', has been observed in the distribution of infrared-obscuring material towards the Galactic Centre (GC), with a characteristic scale of 5'' - 15'', corresponding to 0.2 - 0.6 pc at a GC distance of 8.5 kpc. This structure has been observed in ISAAC images which have a resolution of 0.6'', significantly higher than that of previous studies of the GC. We have discovered granularity throughout the GC survey region, which covers an area of 1.6o * 0.8o in longitude and latitude respectively (300 pc * 120 pc at 8.5 kpc) centred on Sgr A*. This granularity is variable over the whole region, with some areas exhibiting highly structured extinction in one or more wavebands and other areas displaying no structure and a uniform stellar distribution in all wavebands. The granularity does not appear to correspond to longitude, latitude or radial distance from Sgr A*. We find that regions exhibiting high granularity are strongly associated with high stellar reddening.


Preprints available from the authors at ajgosling@gmail.com , or the raw TeX (no figures) if you click here.

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