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Infall of gas as the formation mechanism of stars up to 20 times more massive than the Sun

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Abstract

Theory predicts and observations confirm that low-mass stars (like the Sun) in their early life grow by accreting gas from the surrounding material. But for stars ∼10 times more massive than the Sun (∼10M⊙), the powerful stellar radiation is expected to inhibit accretion1 and thus limit the growth of their mass. Clearly, stars with masses >10M⊙ exist, so there must be a way for them to form. The problem may be solved by non-spherical accretion2,3, which allows some of the stellar photons to escape along the symmetry axis where the density is lower. The recent detection of rotating disks5,4,6 and toroids7 around very young massive stars has lent support to the idea that high-mass (≳8M⊙) stars could form in this way. Here we report observations of an ammonia line towards a high-mass star forming region. We conclude that the gas is falling inwards towards a very young star of ∼20M⊙, in line with theoretical predictions of non-spherical accretion.

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Figure 1: Absorption and emission by molecular gas towards the hypercompact H ii region G24 A1.
Figure 2: Velocity field in the massive toroid G24 A1.

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Acknowledgements

NRAO is operated by Associated University, Inc., under contract with the National Science Foundation. We thank P. Ho for suggestions that improved the presentation of our results.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departament d'Astronomia i Meteorologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Av. Diagonal, 647, 08028, Barcelona, Catalunya, Spain

    Maria T. Beltrán

  2. Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri,

    Riccardo Cesaroni & Leonardo Testi

  3. Istituto di Radioastronomia, INAF, Sezione di Firenze, Largo E. Fermi 5, 50125, Firenze, Italy

    Claudio Codella & Luca Olmi

  4. Subaru Telescope, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, 650 North Aohoku Place, Hawaii, 96720, Hilo, USA

    Ray S. Furuya

Authors
  1. Maria T. Beltrán
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  2. Riccardo Cesaroni
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  3. Claudio Codella
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  4. Leonardo Testi
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  5. Ray S. Furuya
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Correspondence to Maria T. Beltrán.

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Supplementary Notes

This file provides a detailed derivation of the mass accretion rate and a discussion on the uncertainty of the value, and additional references. (PDF 50 kb)

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Beltrán, M., Cesaroni, R., Codella, C. et al. Infall of gas as the formation mechanism of stars up to 20 times more massive than the Sun. Nature 443, 427–429 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature05074

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