A high level of complex structure, or ``granularity'', has been observed in
the distribution of infrared-obscuring material towards the Galactic Centre
(GC), with a characteristic scale of 5arcsec - 15arcsec, corresponding to 0.2 -
0.6pc at a GC distance of 8.5kpc. This structure has been observed in ISAAC
images which have a resolution of 0.6arcsec, significantly higher than that of
previous studies of the GC.
We have discovered granularity throughout the GC survey region, which covers
an area of 1.6deg x 0.8deg in longitude and latitude respectively (300pc x
120pc at 8.5kpc) centred on Sgr A*. This granularity is variable over the whole
region, with some areas exhibiting highly structured extinction in one or more
wavebands and other areas displaying no structure and a uniform stellar
distribution in all wavebands. The granularity does not appear to correspond to
longitude, latitude or radial distance from Sgr A*. We find that regions
exhibiting high granularity are strongly associated with high stellar
reddening.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ