Verena Wolf
Thüringer Landessternwarte Tautenburg
The accretion burst of G323.46 -0.08 - could it have triggered protostellar pulsations?
Young stellar objects (YSOs) collect an important fraction of their final stellar mass during short episodic events, called accretion outbursts. G323.46 -0.08 (G323) is a massive YSO (MYSO), that recently underwent such an event. Massive star-forming regions, including G323, often harbor Class II methanol masers (maser), which are stimulated by mid-infrared (MIR) radiation. During the burst, those maser show flares that have been used in the past to trigger burst/post-burst observations for several objects, including G323. The SOFIA HAWC+ measurements were crucial to constrain the burst energy of that source. Interestingly, the G323 maser flare is overlaid with a periodic oscillation, which was originally attributed to a variable background source [Proven-Adzri+ 2019]. Using the energy estimate, we discuss the possibility that these oscillations could be caused by protostellar pulsations instead.
