Abstracts, Galactic Center Workshop '98
ABSTRACT

Stellar abundances at the Galactic Center

Ramirez, S. V.1;Sellgren, K.1; Carr, J.2; Balachandran, S.3; Blum, R. D.4; Terndrup, D.1

1 The Ohio State University, 174 West 18th Ave., Columbus, OH 43210; 2 Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC 20375-5351; 3 University of Maryland, Astronomy Dept., College Park, MD 20742; 4 Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory, Casilla 603, La Serena, Chile

ABSTRACT: We are measuring chemical abundances of cool, luminous, Galactic Center (GC) stars. Stellar abundances are determined from high-resolution (R=40,000) K-band spectra obtained on the IRTF using CSHELL. Other researchers have observed increasing metallicities in HII regions with decreasing radius in the Milky Way. Chemical abundances in the disks of spiral galaxies are also observed to reach their highest values at the center. This suggests that the GC should have a high metallicity. Nevertheless, our results for [Fe/H] in five stars in the GC are consistent with solar iron abundances.

LINKS: Program, Author, solange@astronomy.ohio-state.edu