Evidence for Disks around Young Massive Stars from 3D Radiative Transfer Image Modeling

While a paradigm for the formation of low-mass stars has been established that is based on accretion of gas and dust through a circumstellar disk, there is no agreed formation scenario for stars with masses greater than 10 solar masses. New evidence for the existence of large-scale flattened structures around young massive stars and compact H II regions is presented and analyzed by radiative transfer models: i) An analysis of the most-extended circumstellar disk known so far including a stability analysis of extended disk structures. ii) A comparison of K-band images of the first hypercompact H II region with a disk candidate and scattered light models. iii) A modeling of the first candidate for a remnant disk around a massive star.