Extremely large telescopes for complex stellar populations around the
  Galactic centre
  The Galactic centre and its surrounding space are important in studying
galaxy-scale evolution, and stellar populations therein are expected to have
imprints of the long-term evolution. Interstellar extinction, however, severely
limits optical observations, thereby requiring infrared observations. In
addition, many systems from those in the proximity of the central black hole to
foreground objects in the disc overlap in each sightline, which complicates the
interpretation of observations of a wide variety of objects. We discuss some
important issues concerning the central regions, particularly the Galactic
bulge and the Nuclear Stellar Disc (also known as the Central Molecular Zone).
An obvious advantage of Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs) is the deeper
limiting magnitudes, but we emphasise the importance of the synergy between the
data of deep ELTs and other observational data (e.g. astrometric measurements
and the detection of interstellar absorption lines) in order to disentangle the
complex stellar populations.
