SOFIA/FORCAST Galactic Center Source Catalog

TL;DR

This paper presents a comprehensive catalog of 950 sources observed at 25 and 37 micrometers in the inner 200 parsecs of the Milky Way, capturing diverse source types to aid astrophysical studies.

Contribution

The first extensive catalog of sources at these wavelengths in the Galactic Center, including point, compact, and extended sources, with metrics for source classification.

Findings

Catalog includes 950 sources with diverse morphologies.

Provides metrics for distinguishing source types.

Complements existing infrared surveys of the Galactic Center.

Abstract

The central regions of the Milky Way constitute a unique laboratory for a wide swath of astrophysical studies, consequently the inner $\sim$400 pc has been the target of numerous large surveys at all accessible wavelengths. In this paper we present a catalog of sources at 25 and 37 $\mu$m located within all of the regions observed with the SOFIA/FORCAST instrument in the inner $\sim$200 pc of the Galaxy. The majority of the observations were obtained as part of the SOFIA Cycle 7 Galactic Center Legacy program survey, which was designed to complement the Spitzer/MIPS 24 $\mu$m catalog in regions saturated in the MIPS observations. Due to the wide variety of source types captured by our observations at 25 and 37 $\mu$m, we do not limit the FORCAST source catalog to unresolved point sources, or treat all sources as if they are point-like sources. The catalog includes all detectable sources in the regions, resulting in a catalog of 950 sources, including point sources, compact sources, and extended sources. We also provide the user with metrics to discriminate between the source types.