We present new observations of the C-band continuum emission and masers to assess high-mass (>8M_{sun}_) star formation at early evolutionary phases in the inner 200pc of the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ) of the Galaxy. The continuum observation is complete to free-free emission from stars above 10-11M_{sun}_ in 91% of the covered area. We identify 104 compact sources in the continuum emission, among which five are confirmed ultracompact HII regions, 12 are candidates of ultracompact HII regions, and the remaining 87 sources are mostly massive stars in clusters, field stars, evolved stars, pulsars, extragalactic sources, or of unknown nature that is to be investigated. We detect class II CH_3_OH masers at 23 positions, among which six are new detections. We confirm six known H_2_CO masers in two high-mass star-forming regions and detect two new H_2_CO masers toward the Sgr C cloud, making it the ninth region in the Galaxy that contains masers of this type. In spite of these detections, we find that current high-mass star formation in the inner CMZ is only taking place in seven isolated clouds. The results suggest that star formation at early evolutionary phases in the CMZ is about 10 times less efficient than expected from the dense gas star formation relation, which is in line with previous studies that focus on more evolved phases of star formation. This means that if there will be any impending, next burst of star formation in the CMZ, it has not yet begun.
We search for microlensing events in fields along the Galactic minor axis, ranging from the Galactic center to -3.7{deg}<b<3.9{deg} using the VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea (VVV) survey near-IR photometry. The new search is made across VVV tiles b291, b305, b319, b347, b361, and b375, covering a total area of about 11.5deg^2^. We find a total of N=238 new microlensing events in this new area, N=74, which are classified as bulge red clump (RC) giant sources. Combining them with N=122 events that we had previously reported in the Galactic center (VVV tile b333), allows us to study the latitude distribution of the microlensing events reaching the Galactic plane at b=00 for the first time. We find a very strong dependence of the number of microlensing events with Galactic latitude, a number that increases rapidly toward the Galactic center by one order of magnitude from |b|=2{deg} to b=0{deg} with a much steeper gradient than with Galactic longitude. The microlensing event population shows a flattened distribution (axial ratio b/a~1.5). The final sample shows a shorter mean timescale distribution than the Galactic plane sample for both the complete population and RC stars.
