Understanding high-mass star formation through KaVA observations of water and methanol masers

• Published in: Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union 2017-09, Vol.13 (S336), p.259-262
• Main Authors: Kim, Kee-Tae, Hirota, Tomoya, Sugiyama, Koichiro, Kim, Jungha, Byun, Do-Young, Chibueze, James, Hachisuka, Kazuya, Hu, Bo, Hwang, Eodam, Kang, Ji-Hyun, Kim, Jeong-Sook, Kim, Mikyoung, Liu, Tie, Matsumoto, Naoko, Motogi, Kazuhito, Oh, Chung Sik, Sunada, Kazuyoshi, Wu, Yuanwei
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Contributed Papers
• ISSN: 1743-9213; 1743-9221
• DOI: 10.1017/S1743921317011681

Despite their importance in the formation and evolution of stellar clusters and galaxies, the formation of high-mass stars remains poorly understood. We recently started a systematic observational study of the 22 GHz water and 44 GHz class I methanol masers in high-mass star-forming regions as a four-year KaVA large program. Our sample consists of 87 high-mass young stellar objects (HM-YSOs) in various evolutionary phases, many of which are associated with two or more different maser species. The primary scientific goals are to measure the spatial distributions and 3-dimensional velocity fields of multiple maser species, and understand the dynamical evolution of HM-YSOs and their circumstellar structures, in conjunction with follow-up observations with JVN/EAVN (6.7 GHz class II methanol masers), VERA, and ALMA. In this paper we present details of our KaVA large program, including the first-year results and observing/data analysis plans for the second year and beyond.