2000AJ....119..748D

Near-infrared images obtained with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) Adaptive Optics Bonnette (AOB) are used to investigate the stellar content within 18" of the center of the Local Group spiral galaxy M33. Asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars with near-infrared spectral energy distributions similar to those of giants in the solar neighborhood and Baade's window are detected over most of the field. Neither the peak brightness nor the color of the AGB sequence on the (K, J-K) color-magnitude diagram changes with distance from the galaxy center. The bolometric luminosity function (LF) of these stars has a discontinuity near M_bol=-5.25, and comparisons with evolutionary tracks suggest that most of the AGB stars formed in a burst of star formation 1-3 Gyr in the past, indicating that the star formation rate near the center of M33 has varied significantly during the past few Gyr. The images are also used to investigate the integrated near-infrared photometric properties of the nucleus and the surrounding central light concentration. The nucleus is bluer than the central light concentration, in agreement with previous studies at visible wavelengths. The near-infrared photometric properties of the nucleus are reminiscent of relatively young clusters in the Magellanic Clouds, while the photometric properties of the central light concentration are similar to those of globular clusters. The CO index of the central light concentration 0".5 from the galaxy center is 0.05, which corresponds to [Fe/H]~-1.2 for simple stellar systems. Hence, the central light concentration could not have formed from the chemically enriched material that dominates the present-day inner disk of M33.