Massive Star Formation in the Galactic Nuclear Disk

Farhad Yusef–Zadeh
Northwestern University, Evanston, U.S.A.

It has been more than two decades since it was recognized that the general phenomenon of higher gas temperature in the inner few hundred pcs by comparison with local clouds in the disk of the Galaxy. This is one of the least understood characteristics of giant molecular clouds having a much higher gas temperature than dust temperature in the inner few degrees of the Galactic center. We propose that the enhanced cosmic ray electrons in the nuclear disk, as evidenced recently by a number of studies, are responsible for heating directly the gas clouds and elevate the temperature of molecular gas. The higher ionization fraction and higher thermal energy due to the impact of these electrons have important implications in slowing down star formation and reducing the MHD waves damping which results a high velocity dispersion of molecular gas in the nuclear disk. To support the role of cosmic rays in star forming regions, we show evidence of nonthermal radio continuum emission associated with the Sgr B2 cloud based on low–frequency GMRT and VLA observations. In addition, the correlation of methanal maser distribution against IRAC and MIPS images of Galactic nuclear disk will be presented.