Scaled up low-mass star formation in massive star-forming cores in the G333 giant molecular cloud

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that high-mass star-forming cores in G333 are essentially scaled-up versions of low-mass star formation, with detailed radiative transfer modeling revealing infall, turbulence, and chemical properties.

Contribution

The paper introduces a radiative transfer modeling approach to analyze high-mass star-forming regions, providing detailed constraints on infall, turbulence, and chemical abundances, extending low-mass star formation models.

Findings

High infall velocities and mass rates suggest accelerated collapse.

Molecular depletion indicates freeze-out onto dust grains.

Enhanced 13C species imply shock activity within cores.

Abstract

Three bright molecular line sources in G333 have recently been shown to exhibit signatures of infall. We describe a molecular line radiative transfer modelling process which is required to extract the infall signature from Mopra and Nanten2 data. The observed line profiles differ greatly between individual sources but are reproduced well by variations upon a common unified model where the outflow viewing angle is the most significant difference between the sources. The models and data together suggest that the observed properties of the high-mass star-forming regions such as infall, turbulence, and mass are consistent with scaled-up versions of the low-mass case with turbulent velocities that are supersonic and an order of magnitude larger than those found in low-mass star-forming regions. Using detailed radiative transfer modeling, we show that the G333 cores are essentially undergoing a scaled-up version of low mass star formation. This is an extension of earlier work in that the degree of infall and the chemical abundances are constrained by the RT modeling in a way that is not practical with a standard analysis of observational data. We also find high velocity infall and high infall mass rates, possibly suggesting accelerated collapse due to external pressure. Molecular depletion due to freeze-out onto dust grains in central regions of the cores is suggested by low molecular abundances of several species. Strong evidence for a local enhancement of 13C-bearing species towards the outflow cloud cores is discussed, consistent with the presence of shocks caused by the supersonic motions within them.