Unveiling the nature and interaction of the intermediate/high-mass YSOs in IRAS 20343+4129

TL;DR

This study investigates the nature of intermediate and high-mass young stellar objects in IRAS 20343+4129 using submillimeter observations, revealing outflows, dust structures, and potential sites for future star formation.

Contribution

It provides new high-resolution observations of IRS1 and IRS3, identifying outflows and dust features that clarify their evolutionary stages and interactions.

Findings

IRS1 is an intermediate-mass Class I YSO with a 1000 Lsun luminosity.

A high-velocity bipolar outflow is associated with IRS1.

Dust structures suggest an expanding cavity driven by IRS3.

Abstract

In order to elucidate the nature of the brightest infrared sources associated with IRAS 20343+4129, IRS1 and IRS3, we observed with the Submillimeter Array (SMA) the 1.3 mm continuum and CO(2-1) emission of the region. Faint millimeter dust continuum emission was detected toward IRS1, and we derived an associated gas mass of ~0.8 Msun. The IRS1 spectral energy distribution agrees with IRS1 being an intermediate-mass Class I source of about 1000 Lsun, whose circumstellar material is producing the observed large infrared excess. We have discovered a high-velocity CO bipolar outflow in the east-west direction, which is clearly associated with IRS1, and the outflow parameters are similar to those of intermediate-mass young stellar objects. Associated with the blue large scale CO outflow lobe, detected with single-dish observations, we only found two elongated low-velocity structures on either side of IRS3. The large-scale outflow lobe is almost completely resolved out by the SMA. Our detected low-velocity CO structures are coincident with elongated H2 emission features. The strongest millimeter continuum condensations in the region are found on either side of IRS3, where the infrared emission is extremely weak, and the CO and H2 elongated structures follow the border of the millimeter continuum emission that is facing IRS3. All these results suggest that the dust is associated with the walls of an expanding cavity driven by IRS3, estimated to be a B2 star. Within and beyond the expanding cavity, the millimeter continuum sources can be sites of future low-mass star formation.