Spectral energy distribution modelling of Southern candidate massive protostars using the Bayesian inference method

TL;DR

This study applies Bayesian inference to spectral energy distribution modelling of 227 candidate massive protostars, providing statistical parameter estimates and insights into their characteristics and evolutionary status.

Contribution

First application of Bayesian inference to SED modelling of massive star formation, offering a probabilistic approach to parameter estimation for protostellar sources.

Findings

MM-only cores share characteristics with high-mass star formation regions

SED data alone cannot determine the evolutionary stage of massive protostars

Bayesian method provides a statistically robust parameter range for each source

Abstract

Concatenating data from the millimetre regime to the infrared, we have performed spectral energy distribution modelling for 227 of the 405 millimetre continuum sources of Hill et al. (2005) which are thought to contain young massive stars in the earliest stages of their formation. Three main parameters are extracted from the fits: temperature, mass and luminosity. The method employed was Bayesian inference, which allows a statistically probable range of suitable values for each parameter to be drawn for each individual protostellar candidate. This is the first application of this method to massive star formation. The cumulative distribution plots of the SED modelled parameters in this work indicate that collectively, the sources without methanol maser and/or radio continuum associations (MM-only cores) display similar characteristics to those of high mass star formation regions. Attributing significance to the marginal distinctions between the MM-only cores and the high-mass star formation sample we draw hypotheses regarding the nature of the MM-only cores, including the possibility that the population itself is comprised of different types of source, and discuss their role in the formation scenarios of massive star formation. In addition, we discuss the usefulness and limitations of SED modelling and its application to the field. From this work, it is clear that within the valid parameter ranges, SEDs utilising current far-infrared data can not be used to determine the evolution of massive protostars or massive young stellar objects.