The standard model of star formation applied to massive stars: accretion discs and envelopes in molecular lines
Abstract
We address the question of whether the formation of high-mass stars is similar to or differs from that of solar mass stars through new molecular line observations and modelling of the accretion flow around the massive protostar IRAS20126+4104. We combine new observations of NH3(1,1) and (2,2) made at the Very Large Array (VLA), new observations of CH3CN(13-12) made at the Submillimeter Array, previous VLA observations of NH3(3,3) and NH3(4,4) and previous Plateau de Bure observations of C34S(2-1), C34S(5-4) and CH3CN(12-11) to obtain a data set of molecular lines covering 15-419 K in excitation energy. We compare these observations against simulated molecular line spectra predicted from a model for high-mass star formation based on a scaled-up version of the standard disc-envelope paradigm developed for accretion flows around low-mass stars. We find that in accord with the standard paradigm, the observations require both a warm, dense, rapidly rotating disc and a cold, diffuse infalling envelope. This paper suggests that accretion processes around 10 Msolar stars are similar to those of solar mass stars.
- Publication:
-
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Pub Date:
- July 2010
- DOI:
- 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2010.16672.x
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1002.1864
- Bibcode:
- 2010MNRAS.406..102K
- Keywords:
-
- stars: individual: IRAS 20126+4104;
- stars: massive;
- Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
- E-Print:
- Accepted MNRAS