title: A circumstellar disk associated with a massive protostellar object.
abstract: The formation process for stars with masses several times that of the Sun is still unclear. The two main theories are mergers of several low-mass young stellar objects, which requires a high stellar density, or mass accretion from circumstellar disks in the same way as low-mass stars are formed, accompanied by outflows during the process of gravitational infall. Although a number of disks have been discovered around low- and intermediate-mass young stellar objects, the presence of disks around massive young stellar objects is still uncertain and the mass of the disk system detected around one such object, M17, is disputed. Here we report near-infrared imaging polarimetry that reveals an outflow/disk system around the Becklin-Neugebauer protostellar object, which has a mass of at least seven solar masses (M(o)). This strongly supports the theory that stars with masses of at least 7M(o) form in the same way as lower mass stars.
authors.affiliation: Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academic of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China.
authors.forename: Zhibo
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Motohide
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tamura
authors.forename: Misato
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fukagawa
authors.forename: Jim
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hough
authors.forename: Phil
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Lucas
authors.forename: Hiroshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Suto
authors.forename: Miki
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ishii
authors.forename: Ji
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yang