A Keplerian disk with a four-arm spiral birthing an episodically accreting high-mass protostar

Abstract

High-mass protostars (M${}_{\star }>$ 8 M${}_{\odot }$) are thought to gain the majority of their mass via short, intense bursts of growth. This episodic accretion is thought to be facilitated by gravitationally unstable and subsequently inhomogeneous accretion disks. Limitations of observational capabilities, paired with a lack of observed accretion burst events has withheld affirmative confirmation of the association between disk accretion, instability and the accretion burst phenomenon in high-mass protostars. Following its 2019 accretion burst, a heat-wave driven by a burst of radiation propagated outward from the high-mass protostar G358.93-0.03-MM1. Six VLBI (very long baseline interferometry) observations of the raditively pumped 6.7 GHz methanol maser were conducted during this period, tracing ever increasing disk radii as the heat-wave propagated outward. Concatenating the VLBI maps provided a sparsely sampled, milliarcsecond view of the spatio-kinematics of the accretion disk covering a physical range of $\sim$ 50 - 900 AU. We term this observational approach `heat-wave mapping'. We report the discovery of a Keplerian accretion disk with a spatially resolved four-arm spiral pattern around G358.93-0.03-MM1. This result positively implicates disk accretion and spiral arm instabilities into the episodic accretion high-mass star formation paradigm.

arXiv commentPublished in Nature Astronomy in 2023

References in corpus (56)

• Trigonometric Parallaxes of High Mass Star Forming Regions: the Structure and Kinematics of the Milky Way
• Gravitational Instabilities in Circumstellar Disks
• The locality of transport in self-gravitating accretion discs
• On the Role of Disks in the Formation of Stellar Systems: A Numerical Parameter Study of Rapid Accretion
• The Origin of Episodic Accretion Bursts in the Early Stages of Star Formation
• Models of class II methanol masers based on improved molecular data
• The 6-GHz methanol multibeam maser catalogue I: Galactic Centre region, longitudes 345 to 6
• Disk-mediated accretion burst in a high-mass young stellar object
• Testing the locality of transport in self-gravitating accretion discs - II. The massive disc case
• Characterising the Gravitational Instability in Cooling Accretion Discs
• Formation of a Keplerian disk in the infalling envelope around L1527 IRS: transformation from infalling motions to Kepler motions
• An extraordinary outburst in the massive protostellar system NGC6334I-MM1: quadrupling of the millimeter continuum
• Accretion disks in luminous young stellar objects
• 12.2-GHz methanol masers associated with 1.2-mm dust clumps: Quantifying high-mass star formation evolutionary schemes
• A hot compact dust disk around a massive young stellar object
• On the existence of accretion-driven bursts in massive star formation
• Disk-Driven Rotating Bipolar Outflow in Orion Source I
• Flybys in protoplanetary discs: I. Gas and dust dynamics
• ALMA Observations of the Transition from Infall Motion to Keplerian Rotation around the Late-phase Protostar TMC-1A
• Accretion Outbursts in Self-gravitating Protoplanetary Disks
• Evidence for an inner molecular disk around massive Young Stellar Objects
• Forming spectroscopic massive proto-binaries by disk fragmentation
• Simulating the Formation of Massive Protostars: I. Radiative Feedback and Accretion Disks
• Molecular Line Emission from Massive Protostellar Disks: Predictions for ALMA and the EVLA
• Dust trapping by spiral arms in gravitationally unstable protostellar discs
• CO bandhead emission of massive young stellar objects: determining disc properties
• A Keplerian disk around Orion Source I, a ~15 Msun YSO
• On the Relationship of UC H II Regions and Class II Methanol Masers: I. Source Catalogs
• Flybys in protoplanetary discs: II. Observational signatures
• A heat-wave of accretion energy traced by masers in the G358-MM1 high-mass protostar
• A Masing Event in NGC6334I: Contemporaneous Flaring of Hydroxyl, Methanol and Water Masers
• Discovery of a sub-Keplerian disk with jet around a 20Msun young star. ALMA observations of G023.01-00.41
• Radio outburst from a massive (proto)star. When accretion turns into ejection
• The VLTI/MIDI survey of massive young stellar objects - Sounding the inner regions around intermediate- and high-mass young stars using mid-infrared interferometry
• Sub-arcsecond (sub)millimeter imaging of the massive protocluster G358.93-0.03: Discovery of 14 new methanol maser lines associated with a hot core
• Giant burst of methanol maser in S255IR-NIRS3
• Spiral arms and instability within the AFGL 4176 mm1 disc
• Probing discs around massive young stellar objects with CO first overtone emission
• Monitoring observations of 6.7 GHz methanol masers
• Verification of the Effectiveness of VSOP-2 Phase Referencing with a Newly Developed Simulation Tool, ARIS
• Global Gravitational Instabilities in Discs with Infall
• Detection of new methanol maser transitions associated with G358.93-0.03
• Fragmentation and disk formation in high-mass star formation: The ALMA view of G351.77-0.54 at 0.06" resolution
• Discovery of six new class II methanol maser transitions, including the unambiguous detection of three torsionally excited lines toward G358.931-0.030
• Are Elias 2-27's spiral arms driven by self-gravity, or by a companion? A comparative spiral morphology study
• The first bird's-eye view of a gravitationally unstable accretion disk in high-mass star formation
• Disk Kinematics and Stability in High-Mass Star Formation: Linking Simulations and Observations
• Parameter study for the burst mode of accretion in massive star formation
• Massive pre-main sequence stars in M17
• Observing substructure in circumstellar discs around massive young stellar objects
• Protostellar Outflows at the EarliesT Stages (POETS). III. H2O masers tracing disk-winds and jets near luminous YSOs
• A multi-transition methanol maser study of the accretion burst source G358.93-0.03-MM1
• A 6.7 GHz methanol maser survey of the central molecular zone
• Star Formation Sites toward the Galactic Center Region: The Correlation of CH3OH Masers, H2O Masers, and Near-IR Green Sources
• The evolution of the H2O maser emission in the accretion burst source G358.93-0.03
• A Face-on Accretion System in High-Mass Star-Formation: Possible Dusty Infall Streams within 100 AU

Cited by in corpus (7)

• A misaligned protostellar disk fed by gas streamers in a barred spiral-like massive dense core
• Spectral survey of a Hot core with an Eruptive Accretion in S255IR NIRS3 (SHEA): The discovery of class I and class II millimeter methanol maser transitions
• MeerKAT and ALMA view of the AGAL045.804-0.356 clump
• A kinematic study of the disc-outflow system around a high-mass protostar G59.783+0.065 probed by methanol and water masers
• Temporal variability in low-frequency radio interference: Insight from high-cadence monitoring at a candidate radio notification zone in Malaysia
• ALMA detections of circumstellar disks in the giant Hii region M17. Probing the intermediate- to high-mass pre-main-sequence population
• Periodic 6.7 GHz $\mathrm{C}{\mathrm{H}}_3\mathrm{OH}$ maser emission in G353.273+0.641: First candidate for a pulsating high-mass protostar