  Molecular clouds at the Galactic center (GC) have environments considerably
different from their disk counterparts. The GC may therefore provide important
clues about how the environment affects star formation. Interestingly, while
the inner 50 parsecs of our Galaxy include a remarkable population of high-mass
stars, the initial mass function (IMF) appears to be consistent with a Salpeter
slope down to ~ 1 solar mass. We show here that the loss of turbulent pressure
due to ambipolar diffusion and the damping of Alfven and fast MHD waves can
lead to the formation of dense condensations exceeding their Jeans limit. The
fragmentation and subsequent collapse of these condensations is similar to the
diffusion-driven protostellar collapse mechanism expected to occur within
nearby "regular" molecular clouds. As such, a Salpeter IMF at the GC is not
surprising, though the short dynamical timescales associated with the GC
molecular clouds may help explain the lower star formation efficiency observed
from this region.
