Abstract
The direct detection of accretion onto massive protostars through rotating disks constitutes an important tile in the massive-star-formation-theory mosaic. This task is however observationally very challenging. A very interesting example is Cepheus A HW2. The properties of the molecular emission around this YSO seems to suggest the presence of a massive rotating disk (cf. Patel et al. in Nature 437:109, 2005). We have carried out sub-arcsec-resolution PdBI observations of high-density and shock tracers such as SO2, SiO, CH3CN, and CH3OH towards the center of the outflow. A detailed analysis of the spatial distribution and of the velocity field traced by all observed species leads us to conclude that, on a ∼700 AU scale, the Cep-A “disk” is actually the result of the superposition of multiple hot-core-type objects, at least one of them ejecting an outflow at a small angle with respect to the line of sight. Together with the well-known large-scale outflow ejected by HW2, this setup makes for a very complex spatial and kinematic picture.
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Based on observations carried out with the IRAM Plateau de Bure Interferometer. IRAM is supported by INSU/CNRS (France), MPG (Germany) and IGN (Spain).
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Open Access This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0 ), which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
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Comito, C., Schilke, P., Endesfelder, U. et al. High-resolution mm interferometry and the search for massive protostellar disks: the case of Cep-A HW2. Astrophys Space Sci 313, 59–63 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10509-007-9589-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10509-007-9589-2