Modeling the water line emission from the high-mass star-forming region AFGL2591

TL;DR

This study models water line emissions in the high-mass star-forming region AFGL2591, demonstrating how different water transitions reveal the region's physical structure and outflow features, aiding future Herschel observations.

Contribution

It introduces detailed models of water line emissions considering abundance profiles and outflow geometries, enhancing interpretation of Herschel data for high-mass star-forming regions.

Findings

Ground state water lines are predicted in absorption for constant abundance models.

Larger abundance jumps lead to emission profiles in water lines.

Outflow cavity models better reproduce observed line profiles.

Abstract

Context: observations of water lines are a sensitive probe of the geometry, dynamics and chemical structure of dense molecular gas. The launch of Herschel with on board HIFI and PACS allow to probe the behaviour of multiple water lines with unprecedented sensitivity and resolution. Aims: we investigate the diagnostic value of specific water transitions in high-mass star-forming regions. As a test case, we apply our models to the AFGL2591 region. Results: in general, for models with a constant water abundance, the ground state lines, i.e., 1_(10)-1_(01), 1_(11)-0_(00), and 2_(12)-1_(01), are predicted in absorption, all the others in emission. This behaviour changes for models with a water abundance jump profile in that the line profiles for jumps by a factor of ~10-100 are similar to the line shapes in the constant abundance models, whereas larger jumps lead to emission profiles. Asymmetric line profiles are found for models with a cavity outflow and depend on the inclination angle. Models with an outflow cavity are favoured to reproduce the SWAS observations of the 1_(10)-1_(01) ground-state transition. PACS spectra will tell us about the geometry of these regions, both through the continuum and through the lines. Conclusions: it is found that the low-lying transitions of water are sensitive to outflow features, and represent the excitation conditions in the outer regions. High-lying transitions are more sensitive to the adopted density and temperature distribution which probe the inner excitation conditions. The Herschel mission will thus be very helpful to constrain the physical and chemical structure of high-mass star-forming regions such as AFGL2591.