Massive star formation and feedback in W49A: The source of our Galaxy's most luminous water maser outflow

TL;DR

This study uses high-resolution mid-IR imaging to identify the source of a powerful water maser outflow in W49A, revealing a massive protostar with a bipolar outflow driven by accretion, not radiation pressure.

Contribution

It provides the first direct identification of the driving source of the water maser outflow in W49A as a massive protostar with a disk-driven bipolar outflow.

Findings

Identified G:IRS1 as the water maser outflow source.

Estimated the protostar's mass as 45 solar masses.

Showed feedback insufficient for large-scale outflow, implying ongoing accretion.

Abstract

We present high spatial resolution mid-IR images of the ring of UCHII regions in W49A obtained at Gemini North, allowing us to identify the driving source of its powerful H2O maser outflow. These data also confirm our previous report that several radio sources in the ring are undetected in the mid-IR because they are embedded deep inside the cloud core. We locate the source of the water maser outflow at the position of the compact mid-IR peak of source G (source G:IRS1). This IR source is not coincident with any identified compact radio continuum source, but is coincident with a hot molecular core, so we propose that G:IRS1 is a hot core driving an outflow analogous to the wide-angle bipolar outflow in OMC-1. G:IRS1 is at the origin of a larger bipolar cavity and CO outflow. The water maser outflow is orthogonal to the bipolar CO cavity, so the masers probably reside near its waist in the cavity walls. Models of the IR emission require a massive protostar of 45Msun, 3e5Lsun, and an effective envelope accretion rate of 1e-3Msun/yr. Feedback from the central star could potentially drive the H2O maser outflow, but it has insufficient radiative momentum to have driven the large-scale CO outflow, requiring that this massive star had an active accretion disk over the past 10^4 yr. Combined with the spatialy resolved morphology in IR images, G:IRS1 in W49 provides compelling evidence for a massive protostar that formed by accreting from a disk, accompanied by a bipolar outflow.