We report the first results from our program to examine the metallicity distribution of the Milky Way nuclear star cluster connected to SgrA* , with the goal of inferring the star formation and enrichment history of this system , as well as its connection and relationship with the central 100 pc of the bulge/bar system .
We present the first high resolution ( R \sim 24 , 000 ) , detailed abundance analysis of a \mathrm { K } = 10.2 metal-poor , alpha-enhanced red giant projected at 1.5 pc from the Galactic Center , using NIRSPEC on Keck II .
A careful analysis of the dynamics and color of the star locates it at about 26 ^ { +54 } _ { -16 } pc line-of-sight distance in front of the nuclear cluster .
It probably belongs to one of the nuclear components ( cluster or disk ) , not to the bar-bulge or classical disk .
A detailed spectroscopic synthesis , using a new linelist in the K band , finds [ Fe/H ] \sim - 1.0 and [ \alpha /Fe ] \sim + 0.4 , consistent with stars of similar metallicity in the bulge .
As known giants with comparable [ Fe/H ] and alpha enhancement are old , we conclude that this star is most likely to be a representative of the \sim 10 Gyr old population .
This is also the most metal poor confirmed red giant yet discovered in vicinity of the nuclear cluster of the Galactic Center .
We consider recent reports in the literature of a surprisingly large number of metal poor giants in the Galactic Center , but the reported gravities of \log g \sim 4 for these stars calls into question their reported metallicities .