The JWST-NIRCam view of Sagittarius C

III. The extinction curve

¹ Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía s/n, 18008 Granada, Spain
² European Southern Observatory, Garching, Germany
³ Department of Astronomy, University of Florida, PO Box 112055, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA
⁴ Department of Astronomy, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904, USA
⁵ Department of Space, Earth & Environment, Chalmers University of Technology, 412 93 Gothenburg, Sweden
⁶ National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, 2-21-1 Osawa, Mitaka, Tokyo, 181-8588, Japan

^★ Corresponding author: lbravo@iaa.es

Received: 18 July 2025
Accepted: 15 October 2025

Abstract

Context. Determining the infrared extinction curve towards the Galactic centre is crucial for accurately correcting observed data and deriving the underlying stellar populations. However, extinction curves reported in the literature often show discrepancies.

Aims. We aim to derive the infrared extinction curve towards the Galactic centre based on JWST-NIRCam data for the first time, using observations of the Sagittarius C region in the 1-5 μm range.

Methods. We determined extinction ratios using two different methods, both based on measuring the reddening vector using the slope of red clump stars (whose intrinsic properties are well known) in observed colour-magnitude diagrams.

Results. The extinction curve derived in this work is in good agreement with previous results in the literature. We obtained the following extinction ratios relative to F162M: A_FII5W : A_F162M : A_F182M : A_F212N : A_F360M : A_F405N : A_F47ON : A_F48OM = 1.84 ± 0.03 : 1.00 : 0.789 ± 0.005 : 0.607 ± 0.014 : 0.306 ± 0.011 : 0.248 ± 0.017 : 0.240 ± 0.019 : 0.21 ± 0.03. Additionally, we found different values of the extinction index for the short- (λ ~ 1-2.5 μm, α ~ 2) and long-wavelength (λ ~ 2.5-5 μm, α ~ 1.4) regimes, with the extinction curve flattening at longer wavelengths. Comparison with extinction curves derived both inside and outside the Galactic centre suggests that the infrared extinction curve does not significantly vary in the central regions, and shows no significant evidence of variations between different lines of sight beyond the inner Galaxy within the uncertainties.