  The accretion histories of embedded protostars are an integral part of
descriptions of their physical and chemical evolution. In particular, are the
accretion rates smoothly declining from the earlier toward later stages or in
fact characterized by variations such as intermittent bursts? We aim to
characterize the impact of possible accretion variations in a sample of
embedded protostars by measuring the size of the inner regions of their
envelopes where CO is sublimated and relate those to their temperature profiles
dictated by their current luminosities. Using observations from the
Submillimeter Array we measure the extents of the emission from the C18O
isotopologue toward 16 deeply embedded protostars. We compare these
measurements to the predicted extent of the emission given the current
luminosities of the sources through dust and line radiative transfer
calculations. Eight out of sixteen sources show more extended C18O emission
than predicted by the models. The modeling shows that the likely culprit for
these signatures is sublimation due to increases in luminosities of the sources
by about a factor five or more during the recent 10,000 years - the time it
takes for CO to freeze-out again on dust grains. For four of those sources the
increase would have had to have been a factor 10 or more. The compact emission
seen toward the other half of the sample suggests that C18O only sublimates
when the temperature exceeds 30 K - as one would expect if CO is mixed with H2O
in the grain ice-mantles. The small-number statistics from this survey suggest
that protostars undergo significant bursts about once every 20,000 years. This
also illustrates the importance of taking the physical evolutionary histories
into account for descriptions of the chemical structures of embedded
protostars.
