English

On the massive young stellar object AFGL4176: High-spatial-resolution multi-wavelength observations and modeling

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics 2015-06-11 v1

Abstract

Deeply embedded and at distances of several kiloparsecs, massive young stellar objects (MYSOs) present numerous challenges for observation and study. In this work, we present spatially-resolved observations of one MYSO, AFGL 4176, together with survey and literature data, ranging from interferometric observations with VLTI/MIDI in the mid-infrared, to single-dish Herschel measurements in the far-infrared, and sub-millimeter data from APEX. We consider this spatially-resolved, multi-wavelength data set in terms of both radiative transfer and geometric models. We find that the observations are well described by one-dimensional models overall, but there are also substantial deviations from spherical symmetry at scales of tens to hundreds of astronomical units, which are revealed by the mid-infrared interferometric measurements. We use a multiple-component, geometric modeling approach to explain the mid-infrared emission on scales of tens to hundreds of astronomical units, and find the MIDI measurements are well described by a model consisting of a one-dimensional Gaussian halo and an inclined (\theta=60 deg) circumstellar disk extending out to several hundred astronomical units along a position angle of 160 deg. Finally, we compare our results both with previous models of this source, and with those of other MYSOs, and discuss the present situation with mid-infrared interferometric observations of massive stars.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1209.3583,
  title  = {On the massive young stellar object AFGL4176: High-spatial-resolution multi-wavelength observations and modeling},
  author = {Paul Boley and Hendrik Linz and Roy van Boekel and Jeroen Bouwman and Thomas Henning and Andrey Sobolev},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1209.3583},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

15 pages, 14 figures. Accepted to Astronomy and Astrophysics

R2 v1 2026-06-21T22:06:07.368Z