The Nuclear Cluster of the Milky Way: Total Mass and Luminosity (long version)

Understand

Like many other late-type galaxies, the Milky Way contains a nuclear star cluster.

• In this work we obtain the basic properties of its dominant old stellar population.
• Firstly, we derive its structural properties by constructing a stellar surface density map of the central 1000" using extinction corrected star counts from VISTA, WFC3/IR and VLT/NACO data.
• We can describe the profile with a two-component model.