English

An SiO Toroid and Wide-angle Outflow associated with the Massive Protostar W75N(B)-VLA2

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics 2023-10-16 v2 Astrophysics of Galaxies

Abstract

We have carried out ALMA observations of the massive star-forming region W75N(B), which contains the massive protostars VLA1, VLA2, and VLA3. Particularly, VLA2 is an enigmatic protostar associated with a wind-driven H2_2O maser shell, which has evolved from an almost isotropic outflow to a collimated one in just 20 years. The shell expansion seemed to be halted by an obstacle located to the northeast of VLA2. Here we present our findings from observing the 1.3 mm continuum and H2_2CO and SiO emission lines. Within a region of 30"\sim 30" (39,000\sim 39,000 au) diameter, we have detected 40 compact mm-continuum sources, three of them coinciding with VLA1, VLA2, and VLA3. While the H2_2CO emission is mainly distributed in a fragmented structure around the three massive protostars, but without any of the main H2_2CO clumps spatially coinciding with them, the SiO is highly concentrated on VLA2, indicating the presence of very strong shocks generated near this protostar. The SiO emission is clearly resolved into an elongated structure (0.6"×0.3"\sim 0.6"\times0.3"; 780\sim 780 au×\times390 au) perpendicular to the major axis of the wind-driven maser shell. The structure and kinematics of the SiO emission are consistent with a toroid and a wide-angle outflow surrounding a central mass of 10\sim 10 M_{\odot}, thus supporting previous theoretical predictions regarding the evolution of the outflow. Additionally, we have identified the expected location and estimated the gas density of the obstacle that is hindering the expansion of the maser shell.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2310.08086,
  title  = {An SiO Toroid and Wide-angle Outflow associated with the Massive Protostar W75N(B)-VLA2},
  author = {Jose F. Gomez and Jose M. Torrelles and Josep M. Girart and Gabriele Surcis and Jeong-Sook Kim and Jorge Canto and Guillem Anglada and Salvador Curiel and Wouter H. T. Vlemmings and Carlos Carrasco-Gonzalez and Adriana R. Rodriguez-Kamenetzky and Soon-Wook Kim and Ciriaco Goddi and Huib J. van Langevelde and Alvaro Sanchez-Monge},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2310.08086},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

To be published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Sixteen pages, seven figures. Updated metadata