Evidence for disks around young massive stars from 3D radiative transfer image modeling

Jürgen Steinacker

Max-Planck-Institut fuer Astronomie

While a paradigm for the formation of low-mass stars has been established that is based on accretion of gas and dust through a circumstellar disk, there is no agreed formation scenario for stars with masses greater than 10 solar masses. New evidences for the existence of large–scale flattened structures around young massive stars and compact H ii regions is presented and analyzed by radiative transfer models: i) An analysis as well as new data of the most-extended circumstellar disk known so far including a stability analysis of extended disk structures. ii) A comparison of K-band images of the first hypercompact Hii region with a disk candidate and scattered light models. iii) A modeling of the first candidate for a remnant disk around a massive star.