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3.1. Long-term star formation at the Galactic center and its effect on the stellar population
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 May 2016
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Star formation presently occurs in our Galactic nucleus at a rate of several 10−1 M⊙ yr−1. If this value represents the long-term average, some 109 M⊙ of stars should have been generated in our Galaxy's central few hundred parsec volume over the Milky Way's lifetime. As the expected stellar yield is actually in rough agreement with the mass of our Galaxy's bright near-infrared “central r−2 cluster”, it is possible to hypothesize that this massive “nuclear” cluster is in fact the product of long-term nuclear star-formation, rather than being a remnant of the Galaxy's formation epoch. Several lines of evidence supporting this hypothesis are laid out in Serabyn and Morris (1996), to which the reader is referred for a complete discussion and reference list; here only a brief summary of the main arguments is presented.
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- Part I. Stellar Cluster, Star Formation
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- Copyright © Kluwer 1998