HH135/HH136 - a luminous H2 outflow towards a high-mass protostar
Abstract
Near-infrared observations towards the luminous IRAS source IRAS11101-5928 and the associated Herbig-Haro objects HH135/HH136 are presented. The observations reveal the presence of a well-collimated, parsec-sized H2 outflow with a total H2 luminosity of about 2L. The bulk of the molecular gas is characterized by a ro-vibrational excitation temperature of 2000200 K. A small fraction (0.3%) of the molecular gas is very hot, with excitation temperatures around 5500 K. The molecular emission is associated with strong [FeII] emission. The H2 and [FeII] emission characteristics indicate the presence of fast, dissociative J-shocks at speeds of vs ≈ 100 km s-1. Electron densities of ne = 3500-4000 cm-3 are inferred from the [FeII] line ratios. The large H2 luminosity combined with the very large source luminosity suggests that the high-mass protostar that powers the HH135/HH136 flow forms via accretion, but with a significantly increased accretion rate compared to that of low-mass protostars.
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