Intermittent maser flare around the high mass young stellar object G353.273+0.641 I: data & overview

TL;DR

This study monitors water maser emissions from the high-mass young stellar object G353.273+0.641, revealing episodic flares linked to jet activity, structural changes, and acceleration of maser features, supporting its classification as a high-mass protostar.

Contribution

First detailed VLBI and single-dish monitoring of maser flares in G353.273+0.641, linking episodic flares to jet activity and structural maser changes in a high-mass protostellar object.

Findings

Detected two maser flares separated by two years.

Maser features confined within 200 x 200 au$^{2}$ despite wide velocity range.

Flares associated with episodic radio jet activity.

Abstract

We have performed VLBI and single-dish monitoring of 22 GHz H$_{2}$O maser emission from the high mass young stellar object G353.273+0.641 with VERA (VLBI Exploration of Radio Astrometry) and Tomakamai 11-m radio telescope. Two maser flares have been detected, separated almost two years. Frequent VLBI monitoring has revealed that these flare activities have been accompanied by structural change of the prominent shock front traced by H2O maser alignments. We have detected only blue-shifted emissions and all maser features have been distributed within very small area of 200 $\times$ 200 au$^{2}$ in spite of wide velocity range (> 100 km s$^{-1}$). The light curve shows notably intermittent variation and suggests that the H$_{2}$O masers in G353.273+0.641 are excited by episodic radio jet. The time-scale of \sim2 yr and characteristic velocity of \sim500 km s$^{-1}$ also support this interpretation. Two isolated velocity components of C50 (-53 \pm 7 km s$^{-1}$) and C70 (-73 \pm 7 km s$^{-1}$) have shown synchronised linear acceleration of the flux weighted $V_{\rmn{LSR}}$ values (\sim-5 km s$^{-1}$ yr$^{-1}$) during the flare phase. This can be converted to the lower-limit momentum rate of 1.1 \times 10$^{-3}$ M$_{\sun}$ km s$^{-1}$ yr$^{-1}$. Maser properties are quite similar to that of IRAS 20126+4104 especially. This corroborates the previous suggestion that G353.273+0.641 is a candidate of high mass protostellar object. The possible pole-on geometry of disc-jet system can be suitable for direct imaging of the accretion disc in this case.