GLOBULAR-CLUSTERS WITHIN 5-DEGREES OF THE GALACTIC-CENTER

In the recent years we have concentrated efforts to collect Colour-Mag nitude Diagrams of the globular clusters projected in the central part s of the Galaxy. So far we were able to gather photometric data in the V, I and Gunn z bandpasses, for 16 out of the 17 known clusters in th e central 5 degrees radius, most of them severely reddened. Reddening, distance and metallicity are estimated from the horizontal and red gi ant branches. We study the resulting cluster spatial distribution and conclude that essentially no cluster is detected beyond the Galactic C enter distance. The results favour a flattened bulge extending from th e Galactic Center to 4.5 kpc from the Sun. The density distribution of the clusters follows the current models for bulge field stars. We est imate that missing clusters on the opposite side of the Galaxy bulge m ay amount similar to 15 clusters similar to those detected on our side . The projected distribution of clusters is asymmetrical, with higher absorption in the southern Galactic hemisphere. The metallicity distri bution of our sample clusters results similar to that of bulge field s tars. The present ground-based results coupled to main sequence data o f two genuine bulge clusters using the Hubble Space Telescope, point t o a scenario of an old flat bulge with common origin for the stellar p opulations in both globular clusters and field.