A pair of close YSOs with strikingly different outflow ejection geometry

Abstract

We present Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) proper motion observations of water masers toward two young stellar objects (YSOs) of the W75N(B) high-mass star forming region. These observations (Torrelles et al. 2003) show two objects having a similar spectral type (early-B stars), separated in the sky by 0$0^''$7 (corresponding to 1400 AU at the source distance), sharing the same molecular gas environment, but presenting a strikingly different outflow ejection geometry. One of these YSOs, W75N(B)-VLA 1, has a jet-like outflow at 2000 AU scale, with the water masers moving at velocities of ${\simeq}$20 km s$^{-1}$ along the major axis of the thermal radio continuum jet, while the other YSO has a water maser shell outflow of 160 AU radius expanding at ${\simeq}$30 km s$^{-1}$ in multiple directions with respect to the central compact radio continuum source W75N(B)-VLA 2. Given the small dynamical time obtained for the water maser shell (${\simeq}$13 yr), we propose that in the very early stages of the star-formation process there may exist short lived, possibly repetitive, events associated with very poorly collimated outflows. All these results suggest that outflow collimation is not only a consequence of ambient conditions, but something intrinsic to the evolution of the individual stars, opening the important question of how and when these non-collimated wind ejection events occur in the evolution of YSOs. Although we argue in this paper that W75N(B)-VLA 2 could be in an earlier stage of evolution than W75N(B)-VLA 1, we think that observations at (sub)millimeter wavelengths with angular resolutions of ${\simeq}0^''1$ can provide the key for determining the relative stage of evolution of these two remarkable YSOs.