The First Laser Guide Star Adaptive Optics Observations of the Galactic Center: Sgr A*'s Infrared Color and the Extended Red Emission in its Vicinity

(Abridged) We present the first Laser Guide Star Adaptive Optics (LGS-AO) observations of the Galactic center. LGS-AO has dramatically improved the quality, robustness, and versatility with which high angular resolution infrared images of the Galactic center can be obtained with the W. M. Keck II 10-meter telescope. Specifically, Strehl ratios of 0.7 and 0.3 at L'[3.8 micron] and K'[2.1 micron], respectively, are achieved in these LGS-AO images. During our observations, the infrared counterpart to the central supermassive black hole, Sgr A*-IR, showed significant infrared intensity variations, with observed L' magnitudes ranging from 12.6 to 14.5 mag. The faintest end of our L' detections, 1.3 mJy (dereddened), is the lowest level of emission yet observed for this source by a factor of 3. No significant variation in the location of SgrA*-IR is detected as a function of either wavelength or intensity. Near a peak in its intensity, we obtained the first measurement of SgrA*-IR's K'-L' color (3.0 +- 0.2 mag, observed), which corresponds to an intrinsic spectral index of -0.5 +- 0.3. This is significantly bluer than other recent infrared measurements. Because our measurement was taken at a time when Sgr A* was ~6 times brighter in the infrared than the other measurements, we posit that the spectral index of the emission arising from the vicinity of our Galaxy's central black hole may depend on the strength of the flare, with stronger flares giving rise to a higher fraction of high energy electrons in the emitting region.