| Description |
The main goal of this project is to estimate the luminosity of the high-massprotostar IRAS20126+4104 and obtain a direct measurement of the mass lossrate of the associated bipolar outflow. This is a well studied object, wherea 7 Msun protostar is surrounded by a Keplerian disk and powers a bipolaroutflow. The relatively small distance (1.64 kpc) and the limited complexityof the surroundings of this object, combined with the unique angularresolution of HERSCHEL in the far-IR, make it possible to reconstruct thespectral energy distribution and thus obtain an accurate estimate of thestellar luminosity. Knowledge of the mass and luminosity will set constraintson the evolutionary stage of the young stellar object. We also want toobserve the OI 63 micron line which is strictly related to the mass los rateof the outflow. The latter can thus be obtained independent of the usualdrawbacks (uncertain molecular abundance, unknown outflow inclination angle)of the estimates obtained from CO and other typical outflow tracers.Moreover, since the outflow is precessing, one can also relate the positionalong the outflow with the time of ejection and reconstruct the mass lossrate history of this object. We will also observe the OI 145 micron line toverify possible opacity effects in the 63 micron line, from the ratio betweenthe two lines. These data will be complemented with observations of the CIline to image possible photo dissociation regions, plus a number of CO linesobserved with SPIRE, PACS, and HIFI, to reconstruct the excitation structureof the outflow, both in space and velocity. |
