A Face-on Accretion System in High-Mass Star-Formation: Possible Dusty Infall Streams within 100 AU

TL;DR

This study presents high-resolution observations of a face-on high-mass star-forming system revealing dusty infall streams within 100 AU, suggesting very low initial angular momentum or selective tracing of low-angular-momentum material.

Contribution

First detailed interferometric imaging of a face-on high-mass star accretion system showing dusty infall streams and non-axisymmetric maser distributions.

Findings

Infall motion along a parabolic streamline onto the system's equatorial plane.

The accretion stream reaches 16 au, smaller than typical disks, indicating low initial angular momentum.

Estimated initial specific angular momentum is 8 × 10^{20} cm^2 s^{-1}.

Abstract

We report on interferometric observations of a face-on accretion system around the High-Mass young stellar object, G353.273+0.641. The innermost accretion system of 100 au radius was resolved in a 45 GHz continuum image taken with the Jansky-Very Large Array. Our spectral energy distribution analysis indicated that the continuum could be explained by optically thick dust emission. The total mass of the dusty system is $\sim$ 0.2 $M_{\sun}$ at minimum and up to a few $M_{\sun}$ depending on the dust parameters. 6.7 GHz CH$_{3}$OH masers associated with the same system were also observed with the Australia Telescope Compact Array. The masers showed a spiral-like, non-axisymmetric distribution with a systematic velocity gradient. The line-of-sight velocity field is explained by an infall motion along a parabolic streamline that falls onto the equatorial plane of the face-on system. The streamline is quasi-radial and reaches the equatorial plane at a radius of 16 au. This is clearly smaller than that of typical accretion disks in High-Mass star formation, indicating that the initial angular momentum was very small, or the CH$_{3}$OH masers selectively trace accreting material that has small angular momentum. In the former case, the initial specific angular momentum is estimated to be 8 $\times$ 10$^{20}$ ($M_{*}$$/$10 $M_{\sun}$)$^{0.5}$ cm$^{2}$ s$^{-1}$, or a significant fraction of the initial angular momentum was removed outside of 100 au. The physical origin of such a streamline is still an open question and will be constrained by the higher-resolution ($\sim$ 10 mas) thermal continuum and line observations with ALMA long baselines.