SED evolution in massive young stellar objects

It is not yet clear if it can be considered to be a scaled-up analogue of the low-mass star regime, or if there are additional agents like merging of lower-mass forming objects or accretion from initially unbound material. Most of the uncertainties come from the lack of diagnostic tools to evolutionarily classify large samples of candidate massive protostellar objects that can then be studied in more detail.

We want to verify whether diagnostic tools like the SED shape and the relationship between envelope mass and bolometric luminosity can be extended to the study of high-mass star formation. The 8-1200um SED of YSOs in 42 regions of massive star formation has been reconstructed using MSX, IRAS, and submm data partly available from previous works. Apart from IRAS catalogue fluxes, the fluxes in the Mid-IR and sub-mm/mm were derived directly from the images.