Discovery of two embedded massive YSOs and an outflow in IRAS 18144-1723

Massive stars are rarely seen to form in isolation. It has been proposed that association with companions or clusters in the formative stages is vital to their mass accumulation. In this paper, we study IRAS 18144-1723, a massive young stellar object (YSO) that had been perceived in early studies as a single source. In the CO(3–2) line, we detect an outflow aligned well with the outflow seen in H2 in this region. We show that there are at least two YSOs here and that the outflow is most likely to be from a deeply embedded source detected in our infrared imaging. Using multiwavelength observations, we study the outflow and the embedded source and derive their properties. We conclude that IRAS 18144 hosts an isolated cloud, in which at least two massive YSOs are being born. From our submillimetre observations, we derive the mass of the cloud and the core hosting the YSOs.