| Name: Govind Nandakumar |
| Affiliation: ARIES Nainital |
| Conference ID: ASI2026_467 |
| Title: Near-Infrared views of stellar populations in the Galactic center regions |
| Abstract Type: Invited |
| Abstract Category: Stars, Interstellar Medium, and Astrochemistry in Milky Way |
| Author(s) and Co-Author(s) with Affiliation: Govind Nandakumar(ARIES Nainital-263001, India & Division of Astrophysics, Department of Physics, Lund University, Lund - 22364, Sweden), Nils Ryde(Division of Astrophysics, Department of Physics, Lund University, Lund - 22364, Sweden), Mathias Schultheis(Lagrange Laboratory, Observatoire de la Cote d'Azur, Nice-06300, France) |
| Abstract: The Galactic center regions, encompassing the supermassive blackhole of the Milky Way, is unique with an early star formation and chemical enrichment history owing to the inside out formation of the Milky Way (MW). Strong magnetic field, dense gas and high turbulence in the Galactic center regions compared to those in the solar neighbourhood (SN), makes it an ideal test bed for studying star formation and evolution in such unique conditions and is a proxy for understanding initial stages of typical spiral galaxy formation and evolution. Meanwhile, Galactic center regions are very much unexplored owing to the large distance from Earth and the extinction in the optical wavelength regime caused by dust along the line of sight. Thus we have to rely on near infrared and longer wavelength regimes, wherein extinction due to dust is much lower.
In this talk, I will present the recent advancements made in the Galactic center studies. I will particularly focus on the results from our low and high resolution spectroscopic investigations of different stellar populations that constitute various structures in the Galactic center, thanks to near infrared instruments such as IGRINS and KMOS onboard GEMINI and VLT respectively. I will also briefly talk about our current understanding about the formation and evolution scenarios of these different structures based on the comparisons of observed abundance trends with the predictions from chemical evolution models. Finally, I will talk about the upcoming and future near infrared spectroscopic surveys planned to study the Galactic center stellar populations. |
