Abstract

Nebulosity in the central parsec of the Milky Way exhibits a low-ionization spectrum that has led previous analyses of this region to conclude that this material is photoionized by a relatively soft continuum. We have reanalyzed the infrared emission-line spectrum of te Galactic center in order to consider whether the data could actually be explained with photoionization by a relatively hard, yet dilute continuum, and additionally to constrain the properties of the reaiating plasma. We conclude that the composite infrared spectrum does not place strong restrictions on the nature of the ionizing continuum and that much of the ionized gas in the Galactic center is probably quite dense (≳ 105 cm-3). If the ionizing spectral energy distribution is, in fact, relatively hard, this material additionally must be highly clumped. Indications that the ionizing continuum is probably fairly soft are provided by radio recombination-line studies, however. Shocks are unlikely to be important for generating the observed nebulosity in light of the large far-infrared continuum luminosity of the central parsec. The infrared fine-structure spectrum provides mixed evidence forenhanced heavy-element abundances, and enrichment is probably limited to ≲ 2 times solar levels. We predict the optical spectrum of the Galactic center and conclude that it probably appears as an H II nucleus to external observers. Comparisons between the nucleus of the Milky Way and nuclei of external galaxies remain uncertain, however, since the parsec-scale metric apertures typically employed for studies of Galactic-center nebular emission are 1-2 orders of magnitude smaller than those in extragalactic measurements.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-20-1994

Notes/Citation Information

Published in The Astrophysical Journal, v. 430, no. 1, p. 236-251.

© 1994. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.

The copyright holder has granted permission for posting the article here.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/174398

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