1. Frank EisenhauerGalactic Science with ESO Adaptive Optics, ESO Garching, 27 November 20091 … a celebration, only ESO … … a selection, not complete … Frank Eisenhauer Max-Planck-Institute for extraterrestrial Physics 27 November 2009 ESO Garching, Germany Galactic Science with ESO Adaptive Optics Years of Adaptive Optics at ESO

2. Everything becomes obvious if you see it Galileo Galilei 1609 The four brightest moons orbiting Jupiter

3. Everything becomes obvious if you see it Galactic Center 2000+ Bright stars orbiting the Galactic Center

4. NACO, SINFONI, LGSF With highest impact on … COME-ON+, ADONIS CRIRES Schödel et al. 2002 Chauvin et al. 2004 Genzel et al. 2006 Brandl et al. 1996 Galactic Center Star- and planet formation Galaxy formation Star cluster

5. A supermassive black hole in the GC? Wollman et al. (1977) University of California, Berkeley, led by C.H.Townes Not at all obvious, in contrary, there is no bright counterpart in Radio, X-ray, IR no jet … Some, of course, knew all the time … (?) For comparison: M87 Owens, Biretta, Eilek VLA

6. A supermassive black hole in the GC! A double break-through with NAOS/CONICA: Unambiguous mass determinationIdentification of its infrared counterpart Schödel et al. 2002 Genzel et al. 2003

7. 1.6 light years The wonderous Galactic Center stars A double break-through with SINFONI: The central light month The central parsec The missing OB Supergiants of are finally detected, the massive stars indeed live in two discs 90% of the stars are young early type stars on random orbits Eisenhauer et al. 2005 Paumard et al. 2006 Nayakshin et al. 2007

8. The state of the art of stellar orbits … Tracking the motion more than 100 (!) stars within 1 arcsec radius with about 300 µarcsec accuracy Gillessen et al. 2009 The central stars are on thermalized orbits

9. … and flares Multi-wavelength campaigns Polarization measurements Time domain analysis Eckart et al. 2006, Trippe et al. 2006 Eckart et al. 2006, Trippe et al. 2006, Dodds-Eden in prep. Flare probe the physics in the immediate vicinity of the event horizon Broderick & Loeb 2005 Eckart et al. 2009, Dodds Eden et al. 2009

10. … and stellar dynamics and spectroscopy Martins et al. 2007, 2009 S-stars are main-sequence stars Bartko et al. 2009 a,b The discs are warped and its stars have a very top-heavy IMF

11. An universal initial stellar mass function? Not at all obvious, in contrary, the early observations of the starburst Galaxy M82 were indicating that IMF in these regions must be biased against the formation of solar mass stars (Rieke et al. 1980, 1993) But even nearby template are too dense to resolve all stars Melnick 1993 R136 in 30 Dor NGC 3603 Arches Brandl 1999 Figer 1999

12. Starting with COME-ON+ and ADONIS … 6“ R136 in 30 DorNGC 3603 No cutoff at few to solar mass stars, but shallow IMF = relative more massive stars in NGC 3603 Brandl et al. 1996 Eisenhauer et al. 1998

13. … continued with NACO & SINFONI 27“ Espinoza,et al. 2009 Arches Cluster Stolte et al. 2005 Dispute about potential turnover at 6-7 solar massed Harayama et al. 2008 NGC 3603 Slightly top- heavy IMF

14. The mass of the highest mass stars Not at all trivial, because usually determined from stellar evolutionary tracks, which are poorly calibrated for these stars and require good spectral classification Schnurr et al. 2008 NGC 3603 A most massive star weighed so far Martins et al. 2009 Evolutionary sequence of high mass stars Arches Cluster Schnurr et al. 2008

15. The mass of the lowest mass stars NACO Simultaneous Differential Imager SINFONI Spectral Deconvolution Thatte et al. 2007Close et al. 2005Close et al. 2007 AB Dor C Not at all trivial, because usually determined from stellar evolutionary tracks, which are poorly calibrated for these stars and require good spectral classification

16. Massive protostars formed by disc accretion Not at all obvious, because radiation pressure from the protostar on the in-falling material may prevent the formation of stars above ten solar masses M17 silhouette disk Chini et al. 2004, Nürnberger et al. 2007, Nielbock et al. 2008 Protostar with From K-band magnitude Collimated H 2 Jet Accretion disc : >110 M sun from 13 CO radio map and rotation curve

17. Outlook for Galactic Science with AO Stolte et al. 2008 ContinuityHigh Strehl ratio Proper motion ~T will finally solve the field star subtraction problem in many high-mass stellar cluster We will mostly benefit from Arches Spectroscopy (like for High-z science) (other than for High-z science) Next Peri 2013 (?) Accelerations ~T 2 Relativisitc orbits Galactic Center

18. And don’t forget: AO is the Key to VLTI Weigelt et al. 2007