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http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12386/31169
Title: | Early formation and recent starburst activity in the nuclear disk of the Milky Way | Authors: | Nogueras-Lara, Francisco Schödel, Rainer Gallego-Calvente, Aurelia Teresa Gallego-Cano, Eulalia Shahzamanian, Banafsheh Dong, Hui Neumayer, Nadine Hilker, Michael Najarro, Francisco Nishiyama, Shogo Feldmeier-Krause, Anja Girard, Julien H. V. CASSISI, Santi |
Issue Date: | 2020 | Journal: | NATURE ASTRONOMY | Number: | 4 | First Page: | 377 | Abstract: | The nuclear disk is a dense stellar structure at the centre of the Milky Way, with a radius of ~150 pc (ref. <SUP>1</SUP>). It has been a place of intense star formation in the past several tens of millions of years<SUP>1-3</SUP>, but its overall formation history has remained unknown<SUP>2</SUP>. Here, we report that the bulk of its stars formed at least 8 Gyr ago. After a long period of quiescence, a starburst event followed about 1 Gyr ago that formed roughly 5% of its mass within ~100 Myr, in what may arguably have been one of the most energetic events in the history of the Milky Way. Star formation continued subsequently on a lower level, creating a few per cent of the stellar mass in the past ~500 Myr, with an increased rate up to ~30 Myr ago. Our findings contradict the previously accepted paradigm of quasi-continuous star formation at the Galactic Centre<SUP>4</SUP>. The long quiescent phase agrees with the overall quiescent history of the Milky Way<SUP>2,5</SUP> and suggests that our Galaxy's bar may not have existed until recently, or that gas transport through the bar was extremely inefficient during a long stretch of the Milky Way's life. Consequently, the central black hole may have acquired most of its mass already in the early days of the Milky Way. | URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12386/31169 | URL: | https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-019-0967-9 | ISSN: | 2397-3366 | DOI: | 10.1038/s41550-019-0967-9 | Bibcode ADS: | 2020NatAs...4..377N | Fulltext: | open |
Appears in Collections: | 1.01 Articoli in rivista |
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File | Description | Size | Format | |
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1910.06968.pdf | preprint | 3.89 MB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
s41550-019-0967-9.pdf | [Administrators only] | 2.19 MB | Adobe PDF |
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