Detailed near-IR stellar abundances of red giants in the Inner Bulge and Galactic Center

TL;DR

This study advances the analysis of red giants in the Galactic Bulge and Center by utilizing high-resolution infrared spectroscopy to determine their detailed chemical abundances, overcoming previous observational challenges.

Contribution

It introduces a method using high dispersion, high S/N infrared spectra from Keck and VLT to analyze stellar compositions in crowded, obscured regions of the Galaxy.

Findings

First detailed abundance measurements in the Inner Bulge and Galactic Center.

Resolution of previous disagreements about high-end abundance levels.

Demonstration of infrared spectroscopy effectiveness in dense stellar environments.

Abstract

Owing to their extreme crowding and high and variable extinction, stars in the Galactic Bulge, within +-2 degrees of the Galactic plane, and especially those in the Nuclear Star Cluster, have only rarely been targeted for an analyses of their detailed abundances. There is also some disagreement about the high end of the abundance scale for these stars. It is now possible to obtain high dispersion, high S/N spectra in the infrared K band (2.0-2.4 microns) for these giants; we report our progress at Keck and VLT in using these spectra to infer the composition of this stellar population.