The population of Galactic centre filaments III: candidate radio and stellar sources

TL;DR

This study identifies and catalogs radio and IR sources near nonthermal filaments in the Galactic center, suggesting a potential physical association involving stellar sources, filaments, and nuclear outflows, based on new MeerKAT observations.

Contribution

The paper presents a new catalog of radio and IR sources near Galactic center filaments, proposing a possible interaction model involving stellar winds and nuclear outflows.

Findings

57 radio sources associated with filaments identified

Correlation between IR stars and filaments inferred

Potential 3-way association between filaments, radio, and IR sources

Abstract

Recent MeerKAT radio continuum observations of the Galactic center at 20 cm show a large population of nonthermal radio filaments (NRFs) in the inner few hundred pc of the Galaxy. We have selected a sample of 57 radios ources, mainly compact objects, in the MeerKAT mosaic image that appear to be associated with NRFs. The selected sources are about 4 times the number of radio point sources associated with filaments than would be expected by random chance. Furthermore, an apparent correlation between bright IR stars and NRFs is inferred from their similar latitude distributions, suggesting that they both co-exist within the same region. To examine if compact radio sources are related to compact IR sources, we have used archival 2MASS, and {\em Spitzer} data to make spectral energy distribution of individual stellar sources coincident or close to radio sources. We provide a catalogue of radio and IR sources for future detailed observations to investigate a potential 3-way physical association between NRFs, compact radio and IR stellar sources. This association is suggested by models in which NRFs are cometary tails produced by the interaction of a large-scale nuclear outflow with stellar wind bubbles in the Galactic center.