Radio Continuum and Methanol Observations of DR21(OH)

• Published in: The Astrophysical journal 2009-06, Vol.698 (2), p.1321-1329
• Main Authors: Araya, Esteban D, Kurtz, Stan, Hofner, Peter, Linz, Hendrik
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Astronomy; Earth, ocean, space; Exact sciences and technology
• ISSN: 0004-637X; 1538-4357
• DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/698/2/1321

We report high-sensitivity subarcsecond angular resolution observations of the massive star-forming region DR21(OH) at 3.6, 1.3, and 0.7 cm obtained with the Very Large Array. In addition, we conducted observations of CH3OH 44 GHz masers. We detected more than 30 new maser components in the DR21(OH) region. Most of the masers appear to trace a sequence of bow shocks in a bipolar outflow. The centimeter continuum observations reveal a cluster of radio sources; the strongest emission is found toward the molecular core MM1. The radio sources in MM1 are located about 5'' north of the symmetry center of the CH3OH outflow, and therefore they are unlikely to be associated with the outflow. Instead, the driving source of the outflow is likely located in the MM2 core. Although based on circumstantial evidence, the radio continuum from MM1 appears to trace free-free emission from shock-ionized gas in a jet. The orientation of the putative jet in MM1 is approximately parallel to the CH3OH outflow and almost perpendicular to the large-scale molecular filament that connects DR21 and DR21(OH). This suggests that the (accretion) disks associated with the outflows/jets in the DR21-DR21(OH) region have symmetry axes mostly perpendicular to the filament.