The SOFIA Massive(SOMA)Radio Survey. III. Radio Emission from Intermediate-Mass Protostars

TL;DR

This study uses VLA radio observations to analyze intermediate-mass protostars, revealing their morphology, multiplicity, and radio properties, and compares these findings with models to understand their evolutionary stages.

Contribution

It provides new radio detections and morphological analysis of intermediate-mass protostars, expanding the sample and testing evolutionary models.

Findings

Detected eight new radio sources, four entirely new.

Identified jet-like structures in seven sources.

Radio luminosities are lower than simple extrapolations from low-mass protostars, aligning with evolutionary models.

Abstract

We present results from Very Large Array (VLA) radio continuum observations of twelve intermediate-mass (IM) protostars, as part of the \textit{SOFIA} Massive Star Formation Survey. Using these observations, we studied their morphology, multiplicity and radio spectral energy distributions (SEDs). Across our target regions, we resolve multiple compact sources and report eight new detections, four of which are entirely new and four that have counterparts at other wavelengths, but are detected here for the first time at radio frequencies. Based on radio morphologies and spectral indices, we assess the nature of the detected sources, highlighting seven that display jet-like structures and spectral indices consistent with ionized jets. Combining our results with the SOMA Radio I and II results, we expand the overall sample to 29 protostars, covering a bolometric luminosity range from $L_{\rm bol}\sim 10^2$ to $10^6\:L_\odot$. These sources help define a potential evolutionary sequence in the radio versus bolometric luminosity diagram. IM protostars have radio luminosities that are lower than expected from a simple power law extrapolation from low-mass protostars. However, this result is consistent with theoretical expectations from protostellar evolution models, which show low levels of photoionization and reduced shock ionization emission due to expanded stellar radii during this phase. Overall our expanded SOMA Radio sample provides new constraints on theoretical models of massive protostellar evolution, especially the connection to ionized gas structures.