Stellar Systems Group

Mužić, K.; Schödel, R.; Eckart, A.; Meyer, L.; Zensus, A.
"Journal of Physics: Conference Series, Volume 131, Proceedings of "The Universe Under the Microscope - Astrophysics at High Angular Resolution", held 21-25 April 2008, in Bad Honnef, Germany. Editors: Rainer Schoedel, Andreas Eckart, Susanne Pfalzner and Eduardo Ros, pp. 012016 (2008)."
10/2008

ABSTRACT

IRS13N is a small (thicksim0.25'' projected diameter), compact group of sources located thicksim3.5'' from Sgr A* and thicksim0.5'' north from the well known IRS 13E cluster. The sources exhibit strong infrared excess due to warm dust, with colors that are consistent with colors of extremely young objects. We present proper motion measurements for the IRS 13N cluster based on multi-epoch 3.8 μm observations of the Galactic Center with NACO/VLT. Our measurements reveal a new co-moving group of stars, whose dynamical youth speaks in favor of the YSO hypothesis. The confirmation of the existence of such young stars in the Galactic Center would have profound implications on our understanding of star formation close to Sgr A* and to massive black holes in general.