57 research outputs found
The ISO-LWS map of the Serpens cloud core. II. The line spectra
We present spectrophotometric ISO imaging with the LWS and the CAM-CVF of the
Serpens molecular cloud core. The LWS map is centred on the far infrared and
submillimetre source SMM1 and its size is 8' x 8'. The fine structure line
emission in [OI] and [CII] is extended and can be successfully modelled to
originate in a PDR with G_0 = 15 and n(H2) about 10^4 - 10^5 cm^-3. Extended
emission is also observed in the rotational line emission of H2O and high-J CO.
However, lack of sufficient angular resolution prevents us from excluding the
possibility that the emssion regions of these lines are point like, which could
be linked to the embedded objects SMM9 and SMM4. Toward the Class0 source SMM1,
the LWS observations reveal, in addition to fine structure line emission, a
rich spectrum of molecular lines. The sub-thermally excited and optically thick
CO, H2O and OH lines are tracing an about 10^3 AU source with temperatures
higher than 300 K and densities above 10^6 cm^-3. We show that geometry is of
concern for the correct interpretation of the data and based on 2D-radiative
transfer modelling of the disk/torus around SMM1, which successfully reproduces
the entire observed SED and the observed line profiles of CO isotopomers, we
can exclude the disk to be the source of the LWS-molecular line emission. The
CAM-CVF permits us to see a region of rotational H2 emission. This H2 gas has a
temperature of 10^3 K, which suggests that the heating of the gas is achieved
through relatively slow shocks. Although we are not able to establish any firm
conclusion regarding the detailed nature of the shock waves, our observations
of the molecular line emission from SMM1 can be explainable in terms of an
admixture of J-shocks and of C-shocks.Comment: 20 pages, 20 figures, accepted for publication in A&
Dissecting Massive YSOs with Mid-Infrared Interferometry
The very inner structure of massive YSOs is difficult to trace. With
conventional observational methods we often identify structures still several
hundreds of AU in size. But we also need information about the innermost
regions where the actual mass transfer onto the forming high-mass star occurs.
An innovative way to probe these scales is to utilise mid-infrared
interferometry. Here, we present first results of our MIDI GTO programme at the
VLTI. We observed 10 well-known massive YSOs down to scales of 20 mas. We
clearly resolve these objects which results in low visibilities and sizes in
the order of 30 - 50 mas. Thus, with MIDI we can for the first time quantify
the extent of the thermal emission from the warm circumstellar dust and thus
calibrate existing concepts regarding the compactness of such emission in the
pre-UCHII region phase. Special emphasis will be given to the BN-type object
M8E-IR where our modelling is most advanced and where there is indirect
evidence for a strongly bloated central star.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, proceedings contribution for the conference
"Massive Star Formation: Observations confront Theory", held in September
2007 in Heidelberg, Germany; to appear in ASP Conf. Ser. 387, H. Beuther et
al. (eds.
Mid-infrared interferometry of massive young stellar objects
The very inner structure of massive young stellar objects (YSOs) is difficult
to trace. With conventional observational methods we identify structures still
several hundreds of AU in size. However, the (proto-)stellar growth takes place
at the innermost regions (<100 AU) where the actual mass transfer onto the
forming high-mass star occurs. We present results from our programme toward
massive YSOs at the VLTI, utilising the two-element interferometer MIDI. To
date, we observed 10 well-known massive YSOs down to scales of 20 mas
(typically corresponding to 20 - 40 AU for our targets) in the 8-13 micron
region. We clearly resolve these objects which results in low visibilities and
sizes in the order of 30-50 mas. For two objects, we show results of our
modelling. We demonstrate that the MIDI data can reveal decisive structure
information for massive YSOs. They are often pivotal in order to resolve
ambiguities still immanent in model parameters derived from sole SED fitting.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, necessary style files iopams.sty, jpconf11.clo,
and jpconf.cls included; contribution for the conference "The Universe under
the Microscope" (AHAR 2008), held in Bad Honnef (Germany) in April 2008, to
be published in Journal of Physics: Conference Series by Institute of Physics
Publishing, R. Schoedel, A. Eckart, S. Pfalzner, and E. Ros (eds.
IRC+10216 in Action: Present Episode of Intense Mass-Loss Reconstructed by Two-Dimensional Radiative Transfer Modeling
We present two-dimensional (2D) radiative transfer modeling of IRC+10216 at
selected moments of its evolution in 1995-2001, which correspond to three
epochs of our series of 8 near-infrared speckle images (Osterbart et al. 2000,
Weigelt et al. 2002). The high-resolution images obtained over the last 5.4
years revealed the dynamic evolution of the subarcsecond dusty environment of
IRC+10216 and our recent time-independent 2D radiative transfer modeling
reconstructed its physical properties at the single epoch of January 1997
(Men'shchikov et al. 2001). Having documented the complex changes in the
innermost bipolar shell of the carbon star, we incorporate the evolutionary
constraints into our new modeling to understand the physical reasons for the
observed changes. The new calculations imply that during the last 50 years, we
have been witnessing an episode of a steadily increasing mass loss from the
central star, from Mdot ~ 10^-5 Msun/yr to the rate of Mdot ~ 3x10^-4 Msun/yr
in 2001. The rapid increase of the mass loss of IRC+10216 and continuing
time-dependent dust formation and destruction caused the observed displacement
of the initially faint components C and D and of the bright cavity A from the
star which has almost disappeared in our images in 2001. Increasing dust
optical depths are causing strong backwarming that leads to higher temperatures
in the dust formation zone, displacing the latter outward with a velocity v_T ~
27 km/s due to the evaporation of the recently formed dust grains. This shift
of the dust density peak in the bipolar shell mimics a rapid radial expansion,
whereas the actual outflow has probably a lower speed v < v_inf ~ 15 km/s. The
model predicts that the star will remain obscured until Mdot starts to drop
back to lower values in the dust formation zone.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, accepted by Astronomy and Astrophysics, also
available at
http://www.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de/div/ir-interferometry/publications.htm
AZEuS: An Adaptive Zone Eulerian Scheme for Computational MHD
A new adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) version of the ZEUS-3D astrophysical
magnetohydrodynamical (MHD) fluid code, AZEuS, is described. The AMR module in
AZEuS has been completely adapted to the staggered mesh that characterises the
ZEUS family of codes, on which scalar quantities are zone-centred and vector
components are face-centred. In addition, for applications using static grids,
it is necessary to use higher-order interpolations for prolongation to minimise
the errors caused by waves crossing from a grid of one resolution to another.
Finally, solutions to test problems in 1-, 2-, and 3-dimensions in both
Cartesian and spherical coordinates are presented.Comment: 52 pages, 17 figures; Accepted for publication in ApJ
Mid-infrared interferometry of massive young stellar objects. I. VLTI and Subaru observations of the enigmatic object M8E-IR
[abridged] Our knowledge of the inner structure of embedded massive young
stellar objects is still quite limited. We attempt here to overcome the spatial
resolution limitations of conventional thermal infrared imaging. We employed
mid-infrared interferometry using the MIDI instrument on the ESO/VLTI facility
to investigate M8E-IR, a well-known massive young stellar object suspected of
containing a circumstellar disk. Spectrally dispersed visibilities in the 8-13
micron range were obtained at seven interferometric baselines. We resolve the
mid-infrared emission of M8E-IR and find typical sizes of the emission regions
of the order of 30 milli-arcseconds (~45 AU). Radiative transfer simulations
have been performed to interpret the data. The fitting of the spectral energy
distribution, in combination with the measured visibilities, does not provide
evidence for an extended circumstellar disk with sizes > 100 AU but requires
the presence of an extended envelope. The data are not able to constrain the
presence of a small-scale disk in addition to an envelope. In either case, the
interferometry measurements indicate the existence of a strongly bloated,
relatively cool central object, possibly tracing the recent accretion history
of M8E-IR. In addition, we present 24.5 micron images that clearly distinguish
between M8E-IR and the neighbouring ultracompact HII region and which show the
cometary-shaped infrared morphology of the latter source. Our results show that
IR interferometry, combined with radiative transfer modelling, can be a viable
tool to reveal crucial structure information on embedded massive young stellar
objects and to resolve ambiguities arising from fitting the SED.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in A&A, new version
after language editing, one important reference added, conclusions unchange
A quasi-time-dependent radiative transfer model of OH104.9+2.4
We investigate the pulsation-phase dependent properties of the circumstellar
dust shell (CDS) of the OH/IR star OH104.9+2.4 based on radiative transfer
modeling (RTM) using the code DUSTY. Our previous study concerning simultaneous
modeling of the spectral energy distribution (SED) and near-infrared (NIR)
visibilities (Riechers et al. 2004) has now been extended by means of a more
detailed analysis of the pulsation-phase dependence of the model parameters of
OH104.9+2.4. In order to investigate the temporal variation in the spatial
structure of the CDS, additional NIR speckle interferometric observations in
the K' band were carried out with the 6 m telescope of the Special
Astrophysical Observatory (SAO). At a wavelength of 2.12 micron the
diffraction-limited resolution of 74 mas was attained. Several key parameters
of our previous best-fitting model had to be adjusted in order to be consistent
with the newly extended amount of observational data. It was found that a
simple rescaling of the bolometric flux F_bol is not sufficient to take the
variability of the source into account, as the change in optical depth over a
full pulsation cycle is rather high. On the other hand, the impact of a change
in effective temperature T_eff on SED and visibility is rather small. However,
observations, as well as models for other AGB stars, show the necessity of
including a variation of T_eff with pulsation phase in the radiative transfer
models. Therefore, our new best-fitting model accounts for these changes.Comment: 7 pages, including 5 postscript figures and 3 tables. Published in
Astronomy and Astrophysics. (v1: accepted version; v2: published version,
minor grammatical changes
The ISO-LWS map of the Serpens cloud core: I. The SEDs of the IR/SMM sources
ISO-LWS mapping observations of the Serpens molecular cloud core are
presented. The spectral range is 50 - 200 micron and the map size is 8' X 8'.
These observations suffer from severe source confusion at FIR wavelengths and
we employ a Maximum Likelihood Method for the spectro-spatial deconvolution.
The strong and fairly isolated source SMM1 FIRS1 presented a test case, whose
modelled spectral energy distribution (SED), within observational errors, is
identical to the observed one. The model results for the other infrared and
submillimetre sources are therefore likely to represent their correct SEDs.
Simulations demonstrating the reliability and potential of the developed method
support this view. For the majority of sources the peak of the SEDs is found
within the spectral range of the LWS and derived temperatures are generally
higher (>30K) than have been found by earlier deconvolution attempts using IRAS
data. SMM sizes are found to be only a few arcsec in diameter. In addition, the
SMMs are generally optically thick even at LWS wavelengths. Self-consistent
radiative transfer calculations indicates that the SMMs are optically thick out
to even longer wavelengths. Models were calculated for five sources, for which
sufficient data were available, viz. SMM 1, 2, 3, 4 and 9. These models are
optically thick out to millimetre wavelengths (wavelength of unit optical depth
900 to 1400 micron). Envelope masses for these SMMs are in the range 2-6 Msun,
which is of course considerably more massive than estimates based on the
optically thin assumption. The luminosities are in the range 10-70 Lsun,
suggesting the formation of low-mass to intermediate mass stars, so that the
existence of such massive envelopes argues for extreme youth of the SMMs in the
Serpens cloud core.Comment: 17 pages, 21 figures, accepted for publication in A&
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