Hot Molecular Gas in the Circumnuclear Disk

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Abstract We present an analysis of archival Infrared Space Observatory observations of H2 for three pointings in the central 3 pc of the Galaxy: toward the southwest region and northeast region of the Galactic center circumnuclear disk (CND), and toward the supermassive black hole Sgr A*. We detect pure rotational lines from 0–0 S(0) to S(13), as well as a number of rovibrationally excited transitions. Using the pure rotational lines, we perform both fits to a discrete temperature distribution (measuring up to three temperature components with T = 500–600 K, T = 1250–1350 K, and T > 2600 K) and fits to a continuous temperature distribution, assuming a power-law distribution of temperatures. We measure power-law indices of n = 3.22 for the northeast region and n = 2.83 for the southwest region. These indices are lower than those measured for other galaxies or other Galactic center clouds, indicating a larger fraction of gas at high temperatures. We also test whether extrapolating this temperature distribution can yield a reasonable estimate of the total molecular mass, as has been recently done for H2 observations in other galaxies. Extrapolating to a cutoff temperature of 50 K in the southwest (northeast) region, we would measure 32% (140%) of the total molecular gas mass inferred from the dust emission, and 26% (125%) of the total molecular gas mass inferred from the CO emission. Ultimately, the inconsistency of the masses inferred in this way suggests that a simple application of this method cannot yield a reliable estimate of the mass of the CND.