First Science Observations with SOFIA/FORCAST: Properties of Intermediate-Luminosity Protostars and Circumstellar Disks in OMC-2

TL;DR

This study uses multi-wavelength observations to analyze the properties of intermediate-luminosity protostars and circumstellar disks in OMC-2, revealing their evolutionary stages and physical characteristics.

Contribution

It provides detailed spectral energy distribution modeling of young stellar objects in OMC-2, distinguishing between protostars, disks, and binaries with new observational data.

Findings

Six luminous sources are clustered within a small region.

The most embedded source is a class 0 protostar with specific luminosity and infall rate.

Double-peaked SEDs indicate binary systems with a star and a disk.

Abstract

We examine eight young stellar objects in the OMC-2 star forming region based on observations from the SOFIA/FORCAST early science phase, the Spitzer Space Telescope, the Herschel Space Observatory, 2MASS, APEX, and other results in the literature. We show the spectral energy distributions of these objects from near-infrared to millimeter wavelengths, and compare the SEDs with those of sheet collapse models of protostars and circumstellar disks. Four of the objects can be modelled as protostars with infalling envelopes, two as young stars surrounded by disks, and the remaining two objects have double-peaked SEDs. We model the double-peaked sources as binaries containing a young star with a disk and a protostar. The six most luminous sources are found in a dense group within a 0.15 x 0.25 pc region; these sources have luminosities ranging from 300 L_sun to 20 L_sun. The most embedded source (OMC-2 FIR 4) can be fit by a class 0 protostar model having a luminosity of ~50 L_sun and mass infall rate of ~10^-4 solar masses per year.