2014A&A...564L..11L

We investigate the physical and chemical processes at work during the formation of a massive protostar based on the observation of water in an outflow from a very young object previously detected in H₂ and SiO in the IRAS 17233-3606 region. We estimated the abundance of water to understand its chemistry, and to constrain the mass of the emitting outflow. We present new observations of shocked water obtained with the HIFI receiver onboard Herschel. We detected water at high velocities in a range similar to SiO. We self-consistently fitted these observations along with previous SiO data through a state-of-the-art, one-dimensional, stationary C-shock model. We found that a single model can explain the SiO and H₂O emission in the red and blue wings of the spectra. Remarkably, one common area, similar to that found for H₂ emission, fits both the SiO and H₂O emission regions. This shock model subsequently allowed us to assess the shocked water column density, N_H2_O=1.2x10¹⁸cm^–2, mass, M_H2_O=12.5M_⊕, and its maximum fractional abundance with respect to the total density, x_H2_O=1.4x10^–4. The corresponding water abundance in fractional column density units ranges between 2.5x10^–5 and 1.2x10^–5, in agreement with recent results obtained in outflows from low- and high-mass young stellar objects.