Accretion history of massive stars

Constraining the accretion history of individual protostars is therefore an important aspect of star formation research. The goal of the study presented here is to determine whether high-mass (proto)stars gain their mass from a compact (<0.1pc) fixed-mass reservoir of gas, often referred to as dense cores, in which they are embedded, or whether the mass growth of high-mass stars is governed by the dynamical evolution of the parsec-scale clump that typically surrounds them.

To achieve this goal, we performed a 350micron continuum mapping of 11 infrared dark clouds, along side some of their neighbouring clumps, with the ArTeMiS camera on APEX. By identifying about 200 compact ArTeMiS sources, and matching them with Herschel Hi-GAL 70micron sources, we have been able to produce mass vs. temperature diagrams. We compare the nature (i.e. starless or protostellar) and location of the ArTeMiS sources in these diagrams with modelled evolutionary tracks of both core-fed and clump-fed accretion scenarios.