No abstract

We present analyses to determine the fundamental parameters of the Galaxy based on VLBI astrometry of 52 Galactic maser sources obtained with VERA, VLBA and EVN. We model the Galaxy's structure with a set of parameters including the Galaxy center distance R 0 , the angular rotation velocity at the LSR Ω 0 , mean peculiar motion of the sources with respect to Galactic rotation (U src , V src , W src ), rotation-curve shape index, and the V component of the Solar peculiar motions V ⊙ . Based on a Markov chain Monte Carlo method, we find that the Galaxy center distance is constrained at a 5% level to be R 0 = 8.05 ± 0.45 kpc, where the error bar includes both statistical and systematic errors. We also find that the two components of the source peculiar motion U src and W src are fairly small compared to the Galactic rotation velocity, being U src = 1.0 ± 1.5 km s −1 and W src = −1.4 ± 1.2 km s −1 . Also, the rotation curve shape is found to be basically flat between Galacto-centric radii of 4 and 13 kpc. On the other hand, we find a linear relation between V src and V ⊙ as V src = V ⊙ − 19 (±2) km s −1 , suggesting that the value of V src is fully dependent on the adopted value of V ⊙ . Regarding the rotation speed in the vicinity of the Sun, we also find a strong correlation between Ω 0 and V ⊙ . We find that the angular velocity of the Sun, Ω ⊙ , which is defined as Ω ⊙ ≡ Ω 0 + V ⊙ /R 0 , can be well constrained with the best estimate of Ω ⊙ = 31.09 ± 0.78 km s −1 kpc −1 . This corresponds to Θ 0 = 238 ± 14 km s −1 if one adopts the above value of R 0 and recent determination of V ⊙ ∼12 km s −1 .

The 6.7 GHz methanol maser emission, a tracer of forming massive stars, sometimes shows enigmatic periodic flux variations over several 10-100 days. In this Letter, we propose that these periodic variations could be explained by the pulsation of massive protostars growing under rapid mass accretion with rates ofṀ * 10 −3 M yr −1 . Our stellar evolution calculations predict that the massive protostars have very large radii exceeding 100 R at maximum, and here we study the pulsational stability of such bloated protostars by way of the linear stability analysis. We show that the protostar becomes pulsationally unstable with various periods of several 10-100 days depending on different accretion rates. With the fact that the stellar luminosity when the star is pulsationally unstable also depends on the accretion rate, we derive the period-luminosity relation log(L/ L ) = 4.62 + 0.98 log(P /100 days), which is testable with future observations. Our models further show that the radius and mass of the pulsating massive protostar should also depend on the period. It would be possible to infer such protostellar properties and the accretion rate with the observed period. Measuring the maser periods enables a direct diagnosis of the structure of accreting massive protostars, which are deeply embedded in dense gas and are inaccessible with other observations.

We report on the first bird's-eye view of the innermost accretion disk around the high-mass protostellar object G353.273+0.641, taken by Atacama Large Millimter/submillimeter Array long-baselines. The disk traced by dust continuum emission has a radius of 250 au, surrounded by the infalling rotating envelope traced by thermal CH 3 OH lines. This disk radius is consistent with the centrifugal radius estimated from the specific angular momentum in the envelope. The lower-limit envelope mass is ∼5-7 M ⊙ and accretion rate onto the stellar surface is 3 × 10 −3 M ⊙ yr −1 or higher. The expected stellar age is well younger than 10 4 yr, indicating that the host object is one of the youngest high-mass objects at present. The disk mass is 2-7 M ⊙ , depending on the dust opacity index. The estimated Toomre's Q parameter is typically 1-2 and can reach 0.4 at the minimum. These Q values clearly satisfy the classical criteria for the gravitational instability, and are consistent with the recent numerical studies. Observed asymmetric and clumpy structures could trace a spiral arm and/or disk fragmentation. We found that 70% of the angular momentum in the accretion flow could be removed via the gravitational torque in the disk. Our study has indicated that the dynamical nature of a self-gravitating disk could dominate the early phase of high-mass star formation. This is remarkably consistent with the early evolutionary scenario of a low-mass protostar.