Mid‐Infrared Imaging of NGC 6334 I

We present high-resolution (<0.5") mid-infrared Keck II images of individualsources in the central region of NGC 6334 I. We compare these images to imagesat a variety of other wavelengths from the near infrared to cm radio continuumand speculate on the nature of the NGC 6334 I sources. We assert that thecometary shape of the UCHII region here, NGC 6334 F, is due to a champagne-likeflow from a source on the edge of a molecular clump and not a due to a bowshock caused by the supersonic motion of the UCHII region through theinterstellar medium. The mid-infrared emission in concentrated into an arc ofdust that define the boundary between the UCHII region and the molecular clump.This dust arc contains a majority of the masers in the region. We discuss thenature of the four near-infrared sources associated with IRS-I 1, and suggestthat one of the sources, IRS1E, is responsible for the heating and ionizing ofthe UCHII region and the mid-infrared dust arc. Infrared source IRS-I 2, whichhas been thought to be a circumstellar disk associated with a lineardistribution of methanol masers, is found not to be directly coincident withthe masers and elongated at a much different position angle. IRS-I 3 is foundto be a extended source of mid-infrared emission coming from a cluster of youngdusty sources seen in the near-infrared.Comment: Accepted for publication by the Astrophysical Journal, 27 pages, 9 figure