Predicted Colors and Flux Densities of Protostars in the Herschel PACS and SPIRE Filters

TL;DR

This paper models the expected far-infrared colors and flux densities of low-mass protostars in Herschel filters, aiding interpretation of upcoming survey data and enabling diagnostics of protostellar envelope properties.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive grid of protostar models and compares them with Herschel observations to establish diagnostic tools for protostellar envelope properties.

Findings

Herschel data can effectively diagnose protostellar envelope characteristics.

The model grid provides expected flux ratios for various protostar configurations.

Comparison with observations constrains protostellar physical properties.

Abstract

Upcoming surveys with the Herschel Space Observatory will yield far-IR photometry of large samples of young stellar objects, which will require careful interpretation. We investigate the color and luminosity diagnostics based on Herschel broad-band filters to identify and discern the properties of low-mass protostars. We compute a grid of 2,016 protostars in various physical congurations, present the expected flux densities and flux density ratios for this grid of protostars, and compare Herschel observations of three protostars to the model results. These provide useful constraints on the range of colors and fluxes of protostar in the Herschel filters. We find that Herschel data alone is likely a useful diagnostic of the envelope properties of young stars