Non-thermal emission from Massive Young Stellar Objects
Abstract
In the young stellar object (YSO) phase of their lives, massive stars drive bi-polar molecular outflows. These outflows produce beautiful, often hourglass shaped, cavities. The central star possesses a powerful stellar wind (v ~ 2000 km s-1), and possibly a dense equatorial disk wind (v ~ 400 km s-1), which collide with the inner surface of the bi-polar cavity and produces hot (T ~ 105 - 108 K) shocked plasma. A reverse shock is formed at the point where the ram pressure between the preshock flow balances the thermal pressure of the postshock flow and provides a site for the acceleration of non-thermal particles to relativistic energies. Hydrodynamical models of the wind interaction, coupled with calculations of the non-thermal energy spectrum, are used to explore the observable synchrotron and gamma-ray emission from these objects.