The Galactic Center is one of the most dense stellar environments in the Galaxy and is considered to be a plausible place to harbor many neutron stars. In this brief review, we summarize observational efforts in search of neutron stars within a few degrees about the Galactic Center. Up to 10% of Galactic neutron stars may reside in this central region and it is possible that more than a thousand neutron stars are located within only ∼ 25'' about the Galactic Center. Based on observations, we discuss prospects of detecting neutron stars in the Galactic Center via gravitational waves as well as electromagnetic waves.

The Galactic center uniquely provides opportunities to resolve how star clusters form in neutral gas overdensities engulfed in a large-scale accretion flow. We have performed sensitive Green Bank 100m Telescope (GBT), Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (JVLA), and Submillimeter Array (SMA) mapping observations of molecular gas and thermal dust emission surrounding the Galaxy's supermassive black hole (SMBH) Sgr A*. We resolved several molecular gas streams orbiting the center on ≳10 pc scales. Some of these gas streams appear connected to the well-known 2-4 pc scale molecular circumnuclear disk (CND). The CND may be the tidally trapped inner part of the large-scale accretion flow, which incorporates in ow via exterior gas filaments/arms, and ultimately feeds gas toward Sgr A*. Our high resolution GBT+JVLA NH3 images and SMA+JCMT 0.86 mm dust continuum image consistently reveal abundant dense molecular clumps in this region. These gas clumps are characterized by ≳100 times higher virial masses than the derived molecular gas masses based on 0.86 mm dust continuum emission. In addition, Class I CH3OH masers and some H2O masers are observed to be well associated with the dense clumps. We propose that the resolved gas clumps may be pressurized gas reservoirs for feeding the formation of 1-10 solar-mass stars. These sources may be the most promising candidates for ALMA to probe the process of high-mass star-formation in the Galactic center.

We present the results of far-infrared spectral mapping of the Galactic center region with FIS-FTS, which covered the two massive star-forming clusters, Arches and Quintuplet. We find that two dust components with temperatures of about 20 K and 50 K are required to fit the overall continuum spectra. The warm dust emission is spatially correlated with the [OIII] 88 μm emission and both are likely to be associated with the two clusters, while the cool dust emission is more widely distributed without any clear spatial correlation with the clusters. We find differences in the properties of the ISM around the two clusters, suggesting that the star-forming activity of the Arches cluster is at an earlier stage than that of the Quintuplet cluster.

Among the AKARI all-sky survey data, the 9 μm diffuse map is crucial to study the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) emission features on large spatial scales, while the 18 μm map is useful to trace hot dust emission. To utilize these advantages, we have improved the AKARI mid-infrared (MIR) all-sky survey diffuse maps. For example, we have established special methods to remove the effects of the ionizing radiation in the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) and of the scattered light from the moon. Using improved diffuse map data, we study the properties of PAHs and dust in the Galactic center region associated with high-energy phenomena.

We present results of a H13CN J=1-0 mapping survey of molecular clouds toward the Galactic Center (GC) region of -1.6° ≤ l ≤ 2° and -0.23° ≤ b ≤ 0.30° with 2' grid resolution. The H13CN emissions show similar distribution and velocity structures to those of the H12CN emissions, but are found to better trace the feature saturated with H12CN (1-0). The bright components among multi-components of H12CN line profiles usually appear in the H13CN line while most of the dynamically forbidden, weak H12CN components are seldom detected in the H13CN line. We also present results of other complementary observations in 12CO (J=1-0) and 13CO (J=1-0) lines to estimate physical quantities of the GC clouds, such as fractional abundance of HCN isotopes and mass of the GC cloud complexes. We confirm that the GC has very rich chemistry. The overall fractional abundance of H12CN and H13CN relative to H2 in the GC region is found to be significantly higher than those of any other regions, such as star forming region and dark cloud. Especially cloud complexes nearer to the GC tend to have various higher abundance of HCN. Total mass of the HCN molecular clouds within |l|≤ 6° is estimated to be ~2 ×10 7 M⊙ using the abundances of HCN isotopes, which is fairly consistent with previous other estimates. Masses of four main complexes in the GC range from a few 10 5 to ~ 10 7 M⊙ All the HCN spectra with multi-components for the four main cloud complexes were investigated to compare the line widths of the complexes. The largest mode (45 km s-1) of the FWHM distributions among the complexes is in the Clump 2. The value of the mode tends to be smaller at the farther complexes from the GC.

We present Near-IR photometry of the Arches cluster, a young and massive stellar cluster near the Galactic center. We have analyzed the high resolution (FWHM ~ 0.2") H and K" band images in the Galactic Center Demonstration Science Data Set, which were obtained with the Gemini/Hokupa's adaptive optics (AO) system. We present the color-magnitude diagram, the luminosity function and the initial mass function (IMF) of the stars in the Arches cluster in comparison with the HST/NICMOS data. The IMF slope for the range of 1.0 < log (M/M⊙) < 2.1 is estimated to be Γ = -0.79 ± 0.16, in good agreements with the earlier result based on the HST/NICMOS data [Figer et al. 1999, ApJ, 525, 750]. These results strengthen the evidence that the IMF of the bright. stars close to the Galactic center is much flatter than that for the solar neighborhood. This is also consistent with a recent finding that the IMFs of the bright stars in young clusters in M33 get flatter as the galactocentric distance decreases [Lee et al. 2001, astro-ph 0109258]. It is found that the power of the Gemini/ AO system is comparable, with some limits, to that of the HST/NICMOS.

We conducted a deep CCD observations in V band to obtain stellar density distribution and to determine the distances toward two molecular clouds with anomalous velocity in the Galactic anti-center region. Star count method based on the linear programming technique was applied to the CCD photometric data. We found two prominent peaks at distances of around 1.4 and 2.7 kpc. It is found that the first peak coincides well with stellar density enhancement of B8-A0 stars and the second one with the outer Perseus arm. The effect of the choice of the luminosity function is discussed. The stellar number density distribution is used to derive the distances to the molecular clouds and the visual extinctions caused by the clouds. We found that two molecular clouds are located almost at the same distance of about 1.1 ± 0.1 kpc, and the peak extinctions caused by the clouds are about 2.2 ± 0.3 mag in V band.