A population of hypercompact HII regions identified from young HII regions [GA]

http://arxiv.org/abs/2011.07620


Context. The derived physical parameters for young HII regions are normally determined assuming the emission region to be optically-thin. However, this is unlikely to hold for young HII regions such as Hyper-compact HII(HCHII) and Ultra-compact HII(UCHII) regions and leads to the underestimation of their properties. This can be overcome by fitting the SEDs over a wide range of radio frequencies.
Aims. Two primary goals are (1) determining physical properties from radio SEDs and finding potential HCHII regions; (2) using these physical properties to investigate their evolution.
Method. We used Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to make observations of X-band and K-band with angular-resolutions of ~1.7″ and ~0.7″, respectively, toward 114 HII regions with rising-spectra between 1-5 GHz. We complement our observations with VLA archival data and construct SEDs between 1-26 GHz and model them assuming an ionisation-bounded HII region with uniform density.
Results. The sample has a mean electron density of ne=1.6E4cm^{-3}, diameter diam=0.14pc, and emission measure EM = 1.9E7pc*cm^{-6}. We identify 16 HCHII region candidates and 8 intermediate objects between the classes of HCHII and UCHII regions. The ne, diam, and EM change as expected, however, the Lyman continuum flux is relatively constant over time. We find that about 67% of Lyman continuum photons are absorbed by dust within these HII regions and the dust absorption fraction tends to be more significant for more compact and younger HII regions.
Conclusion. Young HII regions are commonly located in dusty clumps; HCHII regions and intermediate objects are often associated with various masers, outflows, broad radio recombination lines, and extended green objects, and the accretion at the two stages tends to be quickly reduced or halted.

Read this paper on arXiv…

A. Yang, J. Urquhart, M. Thompson, et. al.
Tue, 17 Nov 20
68/83

Comments: 28pages, 55 figures, 8 tables. Accepted by A&A