An Outbursting Protostar: The environment of L1251 VLA 6

Abstract

Young protostars that undergo episodic accretion can provide insight into the impact on their circumstellar environments while matter is accreted from the disk onto the protostar. IRAS 22343+7501 is a four component protostar system with one of those being a fading outbursting protostar referred to as L1251 VLA 6. Given the rarity of YSOs undergoing this type of accretion, L1251 VLA 6 can elucidate the fading phase of the post-outburst process. Here we examine structure in the disk around L1251 VLA 6 at frequencies of 10 GHz and 33 GHz with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA). We model the disk structure using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC). This method is then combined with a parametric ray-tracing code to generate synthetic model images of an axisymmetric disk, allowing us to characterize the radial distribution of dust in the system. The results of our MCMC fit show that the most probable values for the mass and radius are consistent with values typical of Class I objects. We find that the total mass of the disk is 0.070^{+0.031}_{-0.2} \rm ~ M_{\sun} and investigate the conditions that could cause the accretion outburst. We conclude that the eruption is not caused by gravitational instability and consider alternative explanations and trigger mechanisms.Comment: 16 pages, 9 figures, 5 tables, Accepted in Ap