Warm dust and gas of massive young stellar objects revealed by Herschel PACS spectroscopy

We present results of Herschel PACS imaging spectroscopy data toward ten massive young stellar objects taken as part of the WISH project. Our sample consists of four high mass protostellar objects (HMPOs), two hot molecular cores (HMCs), and four ultracompact HII regions (UCHIIs), and the spectra cover a broad range of wavelengths (55 to 210 μm) imaged over an ~50” field with 5×5 spaxels. By fitting the continua utilizing a modified black-body formula we estimate mass-weighted dust temperature and column density distributions of warm dust and find that UCHII regions are hottest and HMCs are most deeply embedded. We also estimate rotational temperature and column density distributions of warm CO gas using the rotational diagram analysis, which are comparable over targets in contrast to continuum results. By comparing high J CO line fluxes to the RATRAN estimates of centrally heated envelope models, we find that majority of warm CO originates from bipolar outflow shocks.

Masers in GLIMPSE Extended Green Objects (EGOs)

Large-scale Spitzer surveys of the Galactic plane have yielded a new diagnostic for massive young stellar objects (MYSOs) that are actively accreting and driving outflows: extended emission in the IRAC 4.5 μm band, believed to trace shocked molecular gas. Maser studies of these extended 4.5 μm sources (called EGOs, Extended Green Objects, for the common coding of 3-color IRAC images) have been and remain crucial for understanding the nature of EGOs. High detection rates in VLA CH3OH maser surveys provided the first proof that EGOs were indeed MYSOs driving outflows; our recent Nobeyama 45-m survey of northern EGOs shows that the majority are associated with H2O masers. Maser studies of EGOs also provide important constraints for the longstanding goal of a maser evolutionary sequence for MYSOs, particularly in combination with high resolution (sub)mm data. New SMA results show that Class I methanol masers can be excited by both young (hot core) and evolved (ultracompact HII region) sources within the same massive star-forming region.

Microwave observations of spinning dust emission in NGC6946⋆

ABSTRACT We report new cm-wave measurements at five frequencies between 15 and 18GHz of the continuum emission from the reportedly anomalous ‘region 4’ of the nearby galaxy NGC6946. We find that the emission in this frequency range is significantly in excess of that measured at 8.5GHz, but has a spectrum from 15 to 18GHz consistent with optically thin free–free emission from an ultracompact Hii region. In combination with previously published data, we fit four emission models containing different continuum components using the Bayesian spectrum analysis package radiospec. These fits show that, in combination with data at other frequencies, a model with a spinning dust component is slightly preferred to those that possess better-established emission mechanisms.

The Hot Molecular Core of G12.21–0.10: NH3(4, 4) Observations

In de la Fuente (2007; Ph. D. Thesis), the molecular clump associated with the ultracompact HII region G12.21–0.10 was confirmed as a large, hot, dense Hot Molecular Core nearby to the ionized gas. The density was confirmed by comparing low resolution NH3(2, 2) and (4, 4) VLA observations, with other molecular lines and radio–continuum observations. These results will be presented in detail in a forthcoming paper (de la Fuente et al. in preparation). In these works, for the first time, the spatial location of the Hot Molecular Core is presented. Here we present the NH3(4,4) observations from de la Fuente (2007; Ph. D. Thesis), confirming that the hotter and denser gas in the molecular core lies in a compact structure, of smaller scale than the NH3(2, 2) emission.