2024 Project Description

A Submillimeter Survey of Massive Star Forming Regions with Class II Methanol Masers (II)
This project can be carried out remotely.

Supervisors

Sheng-Yuan Liu, Yu-Nung Su
Find out more about supervisors on ASIAA website

Task Description and Goals

There are growing evidences suggesting that, similar to those in low-mass young stellar objects, luminosity burst phenomena at (sub)millimeter wavelengths for protostellar objects at their early embedded phases also occur in massive star forming regions (MSFRs). Such bursts are plausibly related to variable accretions events as hinted by numerical radiation hydrodynamic simulations. The luminosity burst events in MSFRs are accompanied by (Class II) methanol (CH3OH) maser flares. It is therefore possible to gauge the frequency and degree of such variable events by monitoring the CH3OH masers and conduct follow up observations at other (including submillimeter) wavelengths. While there are several programs routinely mentoring hundreds of CH3OH masers, there is a lack of a uniform database and coherent knowledge about their associated submillimeter continuum emission and molecular gas properties. To this end, we have carried out in ALMA Cycle 8 and Cycle 9 a “snapshot” survey of 169 massive star forming sites associated with 6.7 GHz CH3OH masers. In this project, we will explore potential variability in the submillimeter continuum and analyze the statistical properties of the molecular line characteristics of the sample regions .

Required Background