Methanol and water masers in IRAS 20126+4104: The distance, the disk, and the jet

TL;DR

This study precisely measures the distance and kinematics of IRAS 20126+4104 using maser observations, confirming its status as a high-mass protostar with a disk and jet, and providing insights into its structure and dynamics.

Contribution

The paper provides accurate parallax distance measurement and detailed proper motions of masers, enhancing understanding of the disk-jet system in a high-mass protostar.

Findings

Distance of 1.64 ± 0.05 kpc confirms high-mass protostar status.

Identification of maser groups indicating disk rotation and jet interaction.

Improved model fit for the water maser jet based on new systemic velocity.

Abstract

IRAS 20126+4104 is one of the best candidates for a high-mass (proto)star surrounded by an accretion disk. Such a fact may be used to set constraints on theories of high-mass star formation, but requires confirmation that the mass and luminosity of IRAS 20126+4104 are indeed typical of a B0.5 star, which in turn requires an accurate estimate of the distance. We used the Very Long Baseline Array and the European VLBI Network to observe the 22.2 GHz water and 6.7 GHz methanol masers in IRAS 20126+4104 at a number of epochs suitably distributed in time. The absolute positions of the maser features were established with respect to reference quasars, which allowed us to derive absolute proper motions. From the parallax of the water masers we obtain a distance of 1.64 \pm 0.05 kpc, which is very similar to the value adopted so far in the literature (1.7 kpc) and confirms that IRAS 20126+4104 is a high-mass (proto)star. From the methanol masers we derive the component in the plane of the sky of the systemic velocity of the disk+star system (-16 km/s in right-ascension and +7.6 km/s in declination). Accurate knowledge of the distance and systemic velocity allows us to improve on the model fit to the water maser jet presented in a previous study. Finally, we identify two groups of methanol maser features, one undergoing rotation in the disk and possibly distributed along a narrow ring centered on the star, the other characterised by relative proper motions indicating that the features are moving away from the disk, perpendicular to it. We speculate that the latter group might be tracing the disk material marginally entrained by the jet.