Massive young stellar objects ( MYSOs ) have recently been shown to drive jets whose particles can interact with either the magnetic fields of the jet or ambient medium to emit non-thermal radiation .
We report a search for non-thermal radio emission from a sample of 15 MYSOs to establish the prevalence of the emission in the objects .
We used their spectra across the L- , C- and Q-bands along with spectral index maps to characterise their emission .
We find that about 50 % of the sources show evidence for non-thermal emission with 40 % showing clear non-thermal lobes , especially sources of higher bolometric luminosity .
The common or IRAS names of the sources that manifest non-thermal lobes are ; V645Cyg , IRAS 22134+5834 , NGC 7538 IRS 9 , IRAS 23262+640 , AFGL 402d and AFGL 490 .
All the central cores of the sources are thermal with corresponding mass-loss rates that lie in the range \mathrm { \sim 3 \times 10 ^ { -7 } } to \mathrm { 7 \times 10 ^ { -6 } M _ { \odot } yr ^ { -1 } } .
Given the presence of non-thermal lobes in some of the sources and the evidence of non-thermal emission from some spectral index maps , it seems that magnetic fields play a significant role in the jets of massive protostars .
Also noted is that some of the sources show evidence of binarity and variability .