Detailed Abundances for the Old Population near the Galactic Center: I.
  Metallicity distribution of the Nuclear Star Cluster
  We report the first high spectral resolution study of 17 M giants
kinematically confirmed to lie within a few parsecs of the Galactic Center,
using R=24,000 spectroscopy from Keck/NIRSPEC and a new linelist for the
infrared K band. We consider their luminosities and kinematics, which classify
these stars as members of the older stellar population and the central cluster.
We find a median metallicity of <[Fe/H]>=-0.16 and a large spread from
approximately -0.3 to +0.3 (quartiles). We find that the highest metallicities
are [Fe/H]<+0.6, with most of the stars being at or below the Solar iron
abundance. The abundances and the abundance distribution strongly resembles
that of the Galactic bulge rather than disk or halo; in our small sample we
find no statistical evidence for a dependence of velocity dispersion on
metallicity.
