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| EPoS Contribution |
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Signatures of Accretion Shocks in the Inner Envelope of a Young High-Mass Protostar
Timea Csengeri MPIfR, Bonn, DE | |
| The origin of the highest mass stars is still an enigma in modern astrophysics. Only massive clumps, at the onset of star formation, can reveal the initial conditions and shed light on the necessary physical processes leading to their formation. From the 870 micron ATLASGAL survey of the inner Galaxy, we identified the complete sample of infrared quiet massive clumps located closer than 5 kpc. We targeted this sample in the frame of the SPARKS project with ALMA, reaching the physical scales of individual collapsing envelopes. Our sample uncovers a significant sample of the so far known highest mass Class 0 like protostars. I discuss here a case study of one of the targets which reveals a ~100 Msol protostellar envelope that stays single down to our resolution limit of 400 au. The inner envelope reveals a spiral pattern, and a rotational transition of methanol from its torsionally excited state shows signatures of accretion shocks. Altogether this reveals a qualitatively similar picture for a high-mass protostar in its main accretion phase, as for low-mass protostars. Based on the accretion shocks we suggest the presence of a compact disk. The physical properties of accretion disks around high-mass protostars provide further constrains on the collapse models. | |
| Collaborators: S. Bontemps, OASU/LAB, FR F. Wyrowski, MPIfR, DE A. Belloche, MPIfR, DE K.M. Menten, MPIfR, DE S. Leurini, INAF-Cagliari, IT |
Suggested Session:
High-mass star/star cluster formation |