EXPANDED VERY LARGE ARRAY CONTINUUM OBSERVATIONS TOWARD HOT MOLECULAR CORE CANDIDATES

We have used the Expanded Very Large Array (EVLA) with two 1 GHz wide bands to obtain K-band (1.3 cm) continuum observations toward the following five hot molecular core candidates: IRAS 18151 - 1208, IRAS 18182 - 1433, IRAS 18345 - 0641, IRAS 18470 - 0044, and IRAS 19012 + 0536. The sources were selected from the 2002 list of Sridharan et al. and are characterized by high FIR luminosity, dense molecular and dust condensations, massive large-scale CO flows, and the absence of strong cm continuum emission. These properties are indicative of massive star-forming regions in an evolutionary phase prior to ultra- or hypercompact H II regions. We detect a total of 10 individual 1.3 cm continuum sources toward this sample, and derive in-band spectral indices between 19.3 and 25.5 GHz consistent with thermal free-free emission, for all sources except component A in IRAS 18182 - 1433, which has a negative spectral index indicative of synchrotron emission. We suggest that in most cases the 1.3 cm sources are due to shock-induced ionization, rather than direct photoionization by massive objects. The momentum rate present in these ionized flows is sufficient to drive the large-scale molecular flows. We discuss a number of morphological features supporting this hypothesis. The present observations demonstrate that the EVLA has sufficient sensitivity to study the regions near very young massive stars in the cm continuum.