Understanding Accretion of Young Massive Protostars

2020 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K14774
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 16010:Astronomy-related
• Research Institution: Institute of Physical and Chemical Research
• Principal Investigator: ZHANG YICHEN 国立研究開発法人理化学研究所, 開拓研究本部, 基礎科学特別研究員 (50791943)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-04-01 – 2021-03-31
• Keywords: Massive Star Formation

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The whole project is to search, identify, and study the rotationally supported disks around massive protostars. We have successfully identified several sources with rotationally supported disks around forming massive stars. These observational results support a scenario that massive stars form in a similar way as low-mass stars, despite their strong radiation and kinematic feedbacks. Based on these observations, we have developed a method that can be used to search for disks, including hot-disk molecules and recombination lines. Based on the results and developed methods, we have successfully applied new observations which will extend the research.

Free Research Field

Astrophysics

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

This project improved our understanding of the formation of massive stars. In particular the results support a scenario that massive stars form in a similar way as low-mass solar type stars. The method developed in this study can be applied to more targets to study massive star formation.