THE LUMINOSITY OF THE GALACTIC-CENTER

We present high signal-to-noise 50 and 90-mu-m continuum maps of the central 5' x 4' of the Galaxy made from observations on the Kuiper Airborne Observatory. This set of data was suitable for the implementation of super-resolution techniques, enabling us to achieve effective angular resolutions of 10" x 19" at 50-mu-m and 15" x 24" at 90-mu-m. We present dust and luminosity distribution models which are consistent with the data. In summary, our data are consistent with a flared disk of dust, centered on the position of Sgr A*, having a central cavity with a radius of 1 pc. There is also strong evidence for a large amount of dust between the northern and eastern ionized arms located within the cavity. This "tongue" of dust is probably optically thick at ultraviolet (UV) and visible wavelengths. Both smooth and clumped dust distributions, consistent with the disk and central cavity outlined above, were considered. It was found that for the smooth distribution, the dust heating is consistent with the data only for a central UV source of a few x 10(6) L.; a larger luminosity would result in a luminosity distribution very different from that observed. In this situation most of the dust in the disk is heated by the late-type stellar population at the Galactic Center. For the clumped distribution, the luminosity distribution can be matched to that observed for a central UV source of approximately 10(7) L.. In this case the dust in the disk is heated equally by the luminous central source and the stellar population.