2002ApJ...580..305D

We present high-resolution (<0".5) mid-infrared Keck II images of individual sources in the central region of NGC 6334 I. We compare these images to images at a variety of other wavelengths from the near-infrared to centimeter radio continuum and speculate on the nature of the NGC 6334 I sources. We assert that the cometary shape of the ultracompact H II (UCHII) region here, NGC 6334F, is due to a champagne-like flow from a source on the edge of a molecular clump and not due to a bow shock caused by the supersonic motion of the UCHII region through the interstellar medium. The mid-infrared emission is concentrated into an arc of dust that defines the boundary between the UCHII region and the molecular clump. This dust arc contains a majority of the masers in the region. We discuss the nature of the four near-infrared sources associated with IRS I1 and suggest that one of the sources, IRS 1E, is responsible for the heating and ionizing of the UCHII region and the mid-infrared dust arc. Infrared source IRS I2, which has been thought to be a circumstellar disk associated with a linear distribution of methanol masers, is found not to be directly coincident with the masers and elongated at a much different position angle. IRS I3 is found to be a extended source of mid-infrared emission coming from a cluster of young dusty sources seen in the near-infrared.