Time Variability in Simulated Ultracompact and Hypercompact HII Regions
  Ultracompact and hypercompact HII regions appear when a star with a mass
larger than about 15 solar masses starts to ionize its own environment. Recent
observations of time variability in these objects are one of the pieces of
evidence that suggest that at least some of them harbor stars that are still
accreting from an infalling neutral accretion flow that becomes ionized in its
innermost part. We present an analysis of the properties of the HII regions
formed in the 3D radiation-hydrodynamic simulations presented by Peters et al.
as a function of time. Flickering of the HII regions is a natural outcome of
this model. The radio-continuum fluxes of the simulated HII regions, as well as
their flux and size variations are in agreement with the available
observations. From the simulations, we estimate that a small but non-negligible
fraction (~ 10 %) of observed HII regions should have detectable flux
variations (larger than 10 %) on timescales of ~ 10 years, with positive
variations being more likely to happen than negative variations. A novel result
of these simulations is that negative flux changes do happen, in contrast to
the simple expectation of ever growing HII regions. We also explore the
temporal correlations between properties that are directly observed (flux and
size) and other quantities like density and ionization rates.
