Astron. Astrophys. 337, 832-846 (1998)

Photoevaporation of protostellar disks

III. The appearance of photoevaporating disks around young intermediate mass stars

Olaf Kessel ^{1, 2}, Harold W. Yorke ² and Sabine Richling <sup>2

1</sup> Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany (kessel@mpia-hd.mpg.de)
² Astronomisches Institut der Universität Würzburg, Am Hubland, D-97074 Würzburg, Germany (yorke@astro.uni-wuerzburg.de, richling@astro.uni-wuerzburg.de)

Received 10 February 1998 / Accepted 19 May 1998

Abstract

We present theoretical continuum emission spectra (SED's), isophotal maps and line profiles for several models of photoevaporating disks at different orientations with respect to the observer. The hydrodynamic evolution of these models has been the topic of the two previous papers of this series. We discuss in detail the numerical scheme used for these diagnostic radiation transfer calculations. Our results are qualitatively compared to observed UCHII 's. Our conclusion is that the high fraction of "unresolved" UCHII 's from the catalogues of Wood & Churchwell (1989) and Kurtz et al. (1994) cannot be explained by disks around massive stars. In particular, the observed infrared spectra of these objects indicate dust temperatures which are about one order of magnitude lower than expected. We suggest that disks around close companions to OB stars may be necessary to resolve this inconsistency. Alternatively, strong stellar winds and radiative acceleration could remove disk material from the immediate vicinity of luminous O stars, whereas for the lower luminosity sources considered here this will not occur. We also find that line profiles tracing the evaporated material originating from the disk are not influenced significantly by the existence of stellar winds over a wide range of wind velocities (400 - 1000 km s^-1). We compare our results to the bright IRAS source MWC 349 A. Many of its properties, especially its spatial appearance in high-resolution radio maps, can be well explained by a disk surrounding a UV luminous star with a high velocity stellar wind.

Key words: radiation transfer line: profiles stars: circumstellar matter ISM: H ii regions ISM: jets and outflows

Send offprint requests to: O. Kessel

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Contents

• 1. Introduction
• 2. The physical model
  • 2.1. Continuum transport
    • 2.1.1. Free-free radiation
    • 2.1.2. Dust emission
    • 2.1.3. Net continuum absorption and emission
  • 2.2. Forbidden lines
    • 2.2.1. Ionization equilibrium
    • 2.2.2. Collisional excitation of metastable states
  • 2.3. Balmer lines
  • 2.4. Radiation from the central star
• 3. The numerical model
  • 3.1. Structure of the underlying models
  • 3.2. Strategy of solution
  • 3.3. Continuum radiation transfer
  • 3.4. Radiation transfer in emission lines
  • 3.5. Treatment of ionization fronts
  • 3.6. Treatment of the central radiation source
• 4. Results
  • 4.1. Continuum emission
    • 4.1.1. Spectral energy distributions
    • 4.1.2. Isophotal maps
  • 4.2. Line profiles
• 5. Comparison with observations
  • 5.1. MWC 349 A
• 6. Conclusions
• Acknowledgements
• References

© European Southern Observatory (ESO) 1998

Online publication: August 27, 1998
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