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Register a new userThe Circumstellar Environment of High-Mass Protostellar Objects: IV. C17O Observations and Depletion
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H. S. Thomas
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We observe 84 candidate young high-mass sources in the rare isotopologues C17O and C18O to investigate whether there is evidence for depletion (freeze-out) towards these objects. Observations of the J=2-1 transitions of C18O and C17O are used to derive the column densities of gas towards the sources and these are compared with those derived from submillimetre continuum observations. The derived fractional abundance suggests that the CO species show a range of degrees of depletion towards the objects. We then use the radiative transfer code RATRAN to model a selection of the sources to confirm that the spread of abundances is not a result of assumptions made when calculating the column densities. We find a range of abundances of C17O that cannot be accounted for by global variations in either the temperature or dust properties and so must reflect source to source variations. The most likely explanation is that different sources show different degrees of depletion of the CO. Comparison of the C17O linewidths of our sources with those of CS presented by other authors reveal a division of the sources into two groups. Sources with a CS linewidth >3 km/s have low abundances of C17O while sources with narrower CS lines have typically higher C17O abundances. We suggest that this represents an evolutionary trend. Depletion towards these objects shows that the gas remains cold and dense for long enough for the trace species to deplete. The range of depletion measured suggests that these objects have lifetimes of 2-4x10^5 years.
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The role of accretion disks in the formation of low-mass stars has been well assessed by means of high angular resolution observations at various wavelengths. These findings confirm the prediction that conservation of angular momentum during the collapse leading to the formation of a star is bound to produce flattening and rotation of the collapsing core. What about high-mass stars? At present, several authors have reported on detections of disks around high-mass YSOs. Notwithstanding these important results, the presence of disks rotating about high-mass stars is not sufficient by itself to prove unambiguously the accretion model: what is needed is iron-clad evidence of infall. Such evidence is very difficult to find, as the free-fall velocity becomes significant only very close to the accreting star, i.e., over a region of a few 0.01 pc ($sim$2000 au), which is very difficult to access and disentangle from the surrounding quiescent or rotating material. In this chapter we discuss how to characterize the infall of material in a sample of 36 high-mass accretion disk candidates covering a broad range of luminosities, from 10$^3$ $L_odot$ to 10$^6$ $L_odot$, compiled by Beltran & de Wit (2016) with the next generation Very Large Array (ngVLA).
The Spitzer-GLIMPSE point source catalog and images have been used to study a sample of 381 massive protostellar candidates. IRAC-Point source photometry was used to analyse colours, magnitudes and spectral indicies of the infrared counterparts (IRCs) of massive protostellar objects and a bonafide sample of 50 point sources was obtained. Spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of these 50 sources was extended to the near-infrared and millimeter range by using 2MASS and millimeter data from the literature. An online SED fitter tool based on Monte-Carlo radiative transfer of an accretion model involving star,disk and envelope was used to fit the SEDs of the 50 sources. The IRCs to massive protostellar objects are found to successfully imitate the SEDs of evolutionary phases similar to low mass star formation. Envelope accretion, rather than disk accretion is found to be dominant in building the most massive stars. Unresolved centimeter continuum emission is associated with 27 IRCs classified as massive protostars suggesting that ionised accretion flows may play an important role along with the molecular component. The morphology of the infrared nebulae surrounding the IRCs have an unusual resemblance to the morphologies of ultra-compact HII regions suggesting that these infrared nebulae are possible precursors to the UCHII regions.
We have observed the massive star forming region associated with the early B protostar G192.16-3.84 in NH3(1,1), 22.2 GHz water masers, 1.3 cm continuum emission, and at 850 microns. The dense gas associated with G192.16 is clumpy, optically thin, and has a mass of 0.9 Msun. The ammonia core is gravitationally unstable which may signal that the outflow phase of this system is coming to an end. Water masers trace an ionized jet 0.8 (1600 AU at a distance of 2 kpc) north of G192.16. Masers are also located within 500 AU of G192.16, their velocity distribution is consistent with but does not strongly support the interpretation that the maser emission arises in a 1000 AU rotating disk centered on G192.16. Roughly 30 south of G192.16 (0.3 pc) is a compact, optically thick (optical depth = 1.2) ammonia core (called G192 S3) with an estimated mass of 2.6 Msun. Based on the presence of 850 micron and 1.2 mm continuum emission, G192 S3 probably harbors a very young, low-mass protostar or proto-cluster. The dense gas in the G192 S3 core is likely to be gravitationally bound and may represent the next site of star formation in this region.
We present the results of CS J=2-1 mapping observations towards 39 massive star-forming regions selected from the previous CO line survey of cold IRAS sources with high-velocity CO flows along the Galactic plane (Yang et al. 2002). All sources are detected in CS J=2-1 showing the existence of CS clumps around the IRAS sources. However, one-third of the sources are not deeply embedded in the dense clumps by comparison of the central powering IRAS sources and the morphologies of CS clumps. Physical parameters of the dense molecular clumps are presented. We have identified 12 high-mass protostellar object (HMPO) candidates by checking the association between the dense cores and the IRAS sources, the detection of water maser, and the radio properties towards the IRAS sources. We find that the HMPO sources are characterized by low FIR luminosity to virial mass ratios since they are in very early evolutionary stages when the massive protostars have not reached their full luminosities, which are typical for zero-age main sequence stars. Large turbulent motion in the HMPO sources may be largely due to the large kinetic energy ejected by the central protostars formed in the dense clumps. However, alternative means or undetected outflows may also be responsible for the turbulence in the clumps.
The GLIMPSE archive was used to obtain 3.6--8.0micron, point source photometry and images for 381 massive protostellar candidates lying in the Galactic mid-plane. The colours, magnitudes and spectral indicies of sources in each of the 381 target fields were analysed and compared with the predictions of 2D radiative transfer model simulations. Although no discernable embedded clusters were found in any targets, multiple sources or associations of redenned young stellar objects were found in many sources indicating multiplicity at birth. The spectral index ($alpha$) of these point sources in 3.6--8.0mum bands display large values of $alpha$=2--5. A color-magnitude analog plot was used to identify 79 infrared counterparts to the HMPOs. Compact nebulae are found in 75% of the detected sources with morphologies that can be well described by core-halo, cometary, shell-like and bipolar geometries similar to those observed in ultra-compact HII regions. The IRAC band SEDs of the IR counterparts of HMPOs are best described to represent YSOs with a mass range of 8--20msun in their Class I stages when compared with 2D radiative transfer models. They also suggest that the high $alpha$ values represent reprocessed star/star+disk emission that is arising in the dense envelopes. Thus we are witnessing the luminous envelopes around the protostars rather than their photospheres or disks. We argue that the compact infrared nebulae likely reflect the underlying physical structure of the dense cores and are found to imitate the morphologies of known UCHII regions. Our results favour models of continuuing accretion involving both molecular and ionised accretion components to build the most massive stars rather than purely molecular rapid accretion flows.
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