SOFIA Massive Star Formation Survey

We present multi-wavelength images which reveal outflow cavities and characteristic extinction patterns, and build the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of massive and intermediate-mass protostars observed with SOFIA-FORCAST from ~10 to 40 μm together with archival Spitzer and Herschel data and other ground-based infrared (IR) data. RT models of Zhang & Tan (2018), which are based on the Core Accretion scenario, including outflow cavities driven by MHD disk winds, are then fit to the SEDs and yield key properties of the protostars, such as current stellar mass, the initial core mass, clump mass surface density and accretion rate. In the first place, I test the basic validity of such models, which are based on the TCA model. Next, I investigate the dependence of the protostar properties on evolution and environment and trends from intermediate to high-mass star formation. The first results of the survey are published in De Buizer, Liu, Tan et al. (2017). The analysis of the most luminous protostars of the sample is published in Liu et al. (2019).