English

Dust Seeding Molecules in a Massive Protostar -- Detection of TiO in Orion Source I

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2026-08-02 v1 Solar and Stellar Astrophysics

Abstract

We report the first detection of TiO in star-forming regions based on Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array observations of Orion Source I, a well-characterized massive protostar. Multiple rotational transitions are identified, with emission spatially resolved within 50\sim 50 au, showing a compact distribution with a velocity structure consistent with the base of a rotating outflow. The spatial and velocity distributions of TiO are consistent with those of AlO, with both species being key dust seeding refractory molecules. \textbf{The column density of TiO is derived to be (3.0±0.4)×1015 cm2(3.0 \pm 0.4)\times10^{15}\ {\rm cm^{-2}}, corresponding to XTiO/SiO12.8±1.7×103X_{\rm TiO/SiO} \sim 12.8 \pm 1.7 \times10^{-3}, higher than CI chondrites and indicative of efficient dust-to-gas conversion near the protostar.} We also identify a tentative detection of AlOH, which exhibits a more extended distribution along the disk surface, possibly indicating different conditions from those traced by TiO and AlO. The detection of TiO, a key dust seeding species, offers important constraints on refractory chemistry and the formation environments of primitive minerals, linking astrochemical processes in protostellar systems to the earliest stages of Solar System material formation.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2608.01505,
  title  = {Dust Seeding Molecules in a Massive Protostar -- Detection of TiO in Orion Source I},
  author = {Ziwei E. Zhang and Nami Sakai and Marcelino Agundez and Linda Podio and Claudio Codella and Tomoya Hirota and Adam Ginsburg and Brett McGuire and Nadia M. Murillo and Yuki Okoda and Yoko Oya and Giovanni Sabatini and Aki Takigawa and Kei E. I. Tanaka and Yichen Zhang and Qiuyi Luo and Yu Cheng and Izaskun Jimenez-Serra and Shogo Tachibana},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2608.01505},
  year   = {2026}
}