Accretion disks in luminous young stellar objects

TL;DR

This paper reviews observational data on accretion disks around luminous young stars, highlighting their physical properties, kinematics, and trends in mass accretion rates across different stellar masses.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive summary of interferometric observations of primordial disks in intermediate- and high-mass young stellar objects, emphasizing new insights into their properties and accretion behaviors.

Findings

Mass accretion rates increase quadratically with stellar mass.

Systematic differences exist between mass infall and accretion rates.

Disks show consistent physical and kinematic properties across different observational methods.

Abstract

An observational review is provided of the properties of accretion disks around young stars. It concerns the primordial disks of intermediate- and high-mass young stellar objects in embedded and optically revealed phases. The properties were derived from spatially resolved observations and therefore predominantly obtained with interferometric means, either in the radio/(sub)millimeter or in the optical/infrared wavelength regions. We make summaries and comparisons of the physical properties, kinematics, and dynamics of these circumstellar structures and delineate trends where possible. Amongst others, we report on a quadratic trend of mass accretion rates with mass from T Tauri stars to the highest mass young stellar objects and on the systematic difference in mass infall and accretion rates.