c ○ 2003. Astronomical Society of Japan. Galactic Center Shells and a Recurrent Starburst.pdfVIP

PASJ: Publ. Astron. Soc. Japan 55, 445–450, 2003 April 25 c 2003. Astronomical Society of Japan. Galactic Center Shells and a Recurrent Starburst Model Yoshiaki SOFUE Institute of Astronomy, The University of Tokyo, Mitaka, Tokyo 181-0015 sofue@ioa.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp (Received 2002 October 15; accepted 2003 February 5) Abstract By applying filtering techniques to remove straight filaments in the 20-cm VLA radio image of the Galactic Center Arc region, we have shown that numerous concentric radio shells of radii 5 to 20 pc are surrounding the Pistol and Sickle region, which we call Galactic Center Shells (GCS). Each shell has thermal energy of the order of 49–50 erg. Several CO-line shells are associated, whose kinetic energies are of the order of 1049–50 erg. Summing 10 51 up the energies of recognized GCSs, the total energy amounts to ∼ 10 erg. The GCSs show an excellent correlation with the FIR shells observed at 16–26 µm with the MSX. We propose a model in which GCSs were produced by recurrent and/or intermittent starbursts in the Pistol area during the last million years. The most recent burst occurred some 105 years ago, producing an inner round-shaped shell (GCS I); earlier ones a million years ago produced outer shells (GCS II and III), which are more deformed by interactions with the surrounding ISM and Sgr A halo. We argue that recurrent starbursts had also occurred in the past, which produced larger scale hyper-