A `Water Spout' Maser Jet in S235AB-MIR

TL;DR

This study uses VLBI astrometry to measure the distance, proper motion, and 3D kinematics of water masers in the massive young stellar object S235AB-MIR, revealing a rotating jet structure and maser burst events.

Contribution

First precise parallax and proper motion measurements of water masers in S235AB-MIR, elucidating the jet's 3D kinematics and physical properties.

Findings

Measured distance of 1.56 kpc to S235AB-MIR

Identified a rotating cylindrical jet with specific velocities

Observed maser burst events due to line-of-sight overlaps

Abstract

We report on annual parallax and proper motion observations of H2O masers in S235AB-MIR, which is a massive young stellar object in the Perseus Arm. Using multi-epoch VLBI astrometry we measured a parallax of pi = 0.63 +- 0.03 mas, corresponding to a trigonometric distance of D = 1.56+-0.09 kpc, and source proper motion of ( u alpha cos d , u d) = (0.79 +- 0.12, -2.41 +- 0.14) mas/yr. Water masers trace a jet of diameter 15 au which exhibits a definite radial velocity gradient perpendicular to its axis. 3D maser kinematics were well modelled by a rotating cylinder with physical parameters: v_out = 45+-2 km/s, v_rot = 22+-3 km/s, i = 12+-2 degrees, which are the outflow velocity, tangential rotation velocity and line-of-sight inclination, respectively. One maser feature exhibited steady acceleration which may be related to the jet rotation. During our 15 month VLBI programme there were three `maser burst' events caught `in the act' which were caused by the overlapping of masers along the line of sight.