Nick Indriolo
Space Telescope Science Institute
Water in Massive Protostars: A Comparison of 5 Sources
The regions surrounding massive protostars are complex in terms of structure, dynamics, and chemistry. Warm conditions drive a significant fraction of the oxygen into water, increasing H2O abundances such that water is ubiquitous in these environments. As a result, water is a sensitive tracer of the various physical components (e.g., envelope, outflow, jet, disk) associated with massive protostars. The hot, dense gas in these environments is readily probed by ro-vibrational transitions of H2O at mid-infrared wavelengths. We have observed select windows in the 5-7 micron range toward five massive protostars at about 4 km/s resolution using SOFIA/EXES. Absorption is detected in transitions up to about 4000 K above the ground state. I will present findings from our analysis of these data, and compare results between sources and between previous observations made with other telescopes.
Nick Indriolo - STScI Adwin Boogert - IFA Curtis DeWitt - SSI Agata Karska - MPIfR Edward Montiel - USRA David Neufeld - JHU Matt Richter - UC Davis
