ACES. VII. Compact Continuum Source Catalog of the Central Molecular Zone
Journal article, 2026
The central molecular zone (CMZ) resides in the inner few hundred parsecs of our Galaxy, and despite being the largest reservoir of dense molecular gas in the Milky Way, it has a relatively low present-day star formation rate (SFR) of ∼0.08 M⊙ yr−1. Continuum and spectral line observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) CMZ Exploration Survey (ACES) provide the first full-coverage, high-resolution map of the inner 200 pc of the CMZ at 3 mm. In this paper we present the ACES catalog of compact continuum sources, the most complete catalog of potential sites of star formation in the CMZ to date. Using an automated dendrogram-based source extraction procedure in combination with a by-eye morphological classification scheme, we produce a “full” catalog of 1735 detections in total. Additionally, we use spectral index measurements to generate a “filtered” catalog of 567 sources with minimal contamination from nonthermal filaments and extended free–free emission. We find that 359 (∼63%) of the filtered catalog sources are located at column densities <1023 cm−2, outside of the densest molecular cloud regions, 195 of which have not been identified in previous surveys. After cross-referencing with various catalogs generated from data at different wavelengths, we consider it likely that many of these newly discovered detections are produced by pre-/protostellar sources or compact H ii regions.
Young stellar objects (1834)
Milky Way Galaxy (1054)
Protostars (1302)
Star forming regions (1565)
Star formation (1569)
Galactic center (565)
Author
J. Wallace
University of Connecticut
C. Battersby
University of Connecticut
Nazar Budaiev
University of Florida
H. P. Hatchfield
University of Connecticut
Ashley T. Barnes
European Southern Observatory (ESO)
Taehwa Yoo
University of Florida
Miriam G. Santa-Maria
University of Florida
Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)
Antonio Daley
University of Florida
Q. D. Wang
University of Massachusetts
Anika Schmiedeke
Green Bank Observatory
Kaitlyn E. Sheriff
University of Kansas
Jairo Armijos-Abendaño
Escuela Politécnica Nacional
D. L. Walker
University of Manchester
G. M. Williams
Aberystwyth University
D. Lipman
University of Connecticut
Farideh Mazoochi
Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM)
Natalie Butterfield
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
Francisco Nogueras-Lara
Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)
Y. Sofue
University of Tokyo
R. S. Klessen
Heidelberg University
S. C.O. Glover
Heidelberg University
K. Immer
European Southern Observatory (ESO)
Savannah R. Gramze
University of Florida
Katarzyna M. Dutkowska
Leiden University
Rojita Buddhacharya
Liverpool John Moores University
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
L. Colzi
Centro de Astrobiologia (CAB)
Ashley Lieber
University of Kansas
Alyssa Bulatek
University of Florida
Michael Wieber
University of Kansas
P. García
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Universidad Catolica del Norte
Denise Riquelme-Vásquez
University of La Serena
Xing Pan
Nanjing University
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
J. K. F. Mann
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Marc W. Pound
University of Maryland
Enrico Di Teodoro
Johns Hopkins University
T. Pillai
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
E. Alkhuja
King Abdulaziz University
Max Planck Society
Y. Hu
Institute for Advanced Studies
Dennis Perlot
University of Connecticut
H. A. Smith
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Víctor M. Rivilla
Centro de Astrobiologia (CAB)
Wenyu Jiao
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Feng Wei Xu
Beijing University of Technology
Max Planck Society
Jonathan D. Henshaw
Max Planck Society
A. Ginsburg
University of Florida
E. A. C. Mills
University of Kansas
Qizhou Zhang
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
S. Longmore
COOL Research DAO
Liverpool John Moores University
Nguyen M. Khang
Liverpool John Moores University
Galaxy Salo
Liverpool John Moores University
Jakub Poznanski
University of Connecticut
Dylan Páre
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
Atacama Large Millimeter-submillimeter Array (ALMA)
Maya Petkova
Chalmers, Space, Earth and Environment, Astronomy and Plasmaphysics
I. Jimenez-Serra
Centro de Astrobiologia (CAB)
X. Lu
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Czech Academy of Sciences
S. Martin
European Southern Observatory Santiago
Atacama Large Millimeter Submillimeter Array
A. Sanchez-Monge
Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya (CTTC)
Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)
Bijas Najimudeen
University of Manchester
C. Federrath
Australian National University
Tabassum S. Tanvir
Iowa State University
P. Y. Hsieh
National Astronomical Observatory of Japan
J. Bally
University of Colorado
P. T. P. Ho
Academia Sinica
East Asian Observatory
Mattia C. Sormani
University of Insubria
University of Surrey
Robin G. Tress
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL)
J. Pineda
Max Planck Society
Astrophysical Journal
0004-637X (ISSN) 1538-4357 (eISSN)
Vol. 1009 2 130Subject Categories (SSIF 2025)
Atom and Molecular Physics and Optics
Astronomy, Astrophysics, and Cosmology
DOI
10.3847/1538-4357/ae990d