Large-scale Effect of an Accretion Burst in the High-Mass Young Stellar Object G358.93-0.03-MM1

Abstract

The high-mass young stellar object G358.93-0.03-MM1 underwent a rapid accretion burst event from 2019 January to June, resulting in flares observed in most class II methanol maser transitions starting in mid-January. In contrast, the 22.235 GHz water maser flare started in mid-April. To investigate the physical origin of this significant difference, we made the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array observations toward the G358.93-0.03 region on 2019 March 23 and April 4 and obtained the intensity and spatial distribution images of the water maser as well as the continuum emissions at Ku and K bands on the epoch close to the water maser flare. A comparative analysis, incorporating previously reported detections in February (pre-water maser flare) and June (post-water maser flare), reveals the time lag between the accretion burst and water maser flare. These observations confirm the variations of the propagation speed of a heatwave induced by the accretion burst in different directions: the heatwave is decelerated in dense regions (e.g., the disk and jet), whereas in directions from G358-MM1 to water maser components, the heatwave speed is supposed to be close to the speed of light. Variations in flux density and spatial positions were detected for water masers and continuum emissions, indicating that the accretion burst event originating from G358-MM1 affects not only the immediate environment within a dense structure of 0.″2 (1400 au at a source distance of 6.75 kpc) around MM1 itself, but also exerts influence on broader-scale regions extending up to approximately 3″ (21,000 au).

Keywords

• Star forming regions
• Astrophysical masers
• Accretion
• Burst astrophysics