skip to main content


Title: SOLIS: XVI. Mass ejection and time variability in protostellar outflows: Cep E
Context. Protostellar jets are an important agent of star formation feedback, tightly connected with the mass-accretion process. The history of jet formation and mass ejection provides constraints on the mass accretion history and on the nature of the driving source. Aims. We characterize the time-variability of the mass-ejection phenomena at work in the class 0 protostellar phase in order to better understand the dynamics of the outflowing gas and bring more constraints on the origin of the jet chemical composition and the mass-accretion history. Methods. Using the NOrthern Extended Millimeter Array (NOEMA) interferometer, we have observed the emission of the CO 2–1 and SO N J = 5 4 –4 3 rotational transitions at an angular resolution of 1.0″ (820 au) and 0.4″ (330 au), respectively, toward the intermediate-mass class 0 protostellar system Cep E. Results. The CO high-velocity jet emission reveals a central component of ≤400 au diameter associated with high-velocity molecular knots that is also detected in SO, surrounded by a collimated layer of entrained gas. The gas layer appears to be accelerated along the main axis over a length scale δ 0 ~ 700 au, while its diameter gradually increases up to several 1000 au at 2000 au from the protostar. The jet is fragmented into 18 knots of mass ~10 −3 M ⊙ , unevenly distributed between the northern and southern lobes, with velocity variations up to 15 km s −1 close to the protostar. This is well below the jet terminal velocities in the northern (+ 65 km s −1 ) and southern (−125 km s −1 ) lobes. The knot interval distribution is approximately bimodal on a timescale of ~50–80 yr, which is close to the jet-driving protostar Cep E-A and ~150–20 yr at larger distances >12″. The mass-loss rates derived from knot masses are steady overall, with values of 2.7 × 10 −5 M ⊙ yr −1 and 8.9 × 10 −6 M ⊙ yr −1 in the northern and southern lobe, respectively. Conclusions. The interaction of the ambient protostellar material with high-velocity knots drives the formation of a molecular layer around the jet. This accounts for the higher mass-loss rate in the northern lobe. The jet dynamics are well accounted for by a simple precession model with a period of 2000 yr and a mass-ejection period of 55 yr.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2102405
NSF-PAR ID:
10348606
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; more » ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; « less
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Volume:
662
ISSN:
0004-6361
Page Range / eLocation ID:
A104
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. Abstract

    Protostellar disks are an ubiquitous part of the star formation process and the future sites of planet formation. As part of the Early Planet Formation in Embedded Disks large program, we present high angular resolution dust continuum (∼40 mas) and molecular line (∼150 mas) observations of the Class 0 protostar IRAS 15398–3359. The dust continuum is small, compact, and centrally peaked, while more extended dust structures are found in the outflow directions. We perform a 2D Gaussian fitting and find the deconvolved size and 2σradius of the dust disk to be 4.5 × 2.8 au and 3.8 au, respectively. We estimate the gas+dust disk mass assuming optically thin continuum emission to be 0.6MJ–1.8MJ, indicating a very low mass disk. The CO isotopologues trace components of the outflows and inner envelope, while SO traces a compact, rotating disk-like component. Using several rotation curve fittings on the position–velocity diagram of the SO emission, the lower limits of the protostellar mass and gas disk radius are 0.022Mand 31.2 au, respectively, from our Modified 2 single power-law fitting. A conservative upper limit of the protostellar mass is inferred to be 0.1M. The protostellar mass accretion rate and the specific angular momentum at the protostellar disk edge are found to be in the range of (1.3–6.1) × 10−6Myr−1and (1.2–3.8) × 10−4km s−1pc, respectively, with an age estimated between 0.4 × 104yr and 7.5 × 104yr. At this young age with no clear substructures in the disk, planet formation would likely not yet have started. This study highlights the importance of high-resolution observations and systematic fitting procedures when deriving dynamical properties of deeply embedded Class 0 protostars.

     
    more » « less
  2. Abstract Understanding how material accretes onto the rotationally supported disk from the surrounding envelope of gas and dust in the youngest protostellar systems is important for describing how disks are formed. Magnetohydrodynamic simulations of magnetized, turbulent disk formation usually show spiral-like streams of material (accretion flows) connecting the envelope to the disk. However, accretion flows in these early stages of protostellar formation still remain poorly characterized, due to their low intensity, and possibly some extended structures are disregarded as being part of the outflow cavity. We use ALMA archival data of a young Class 0 protostar, Lupus 3-MMS, to uncover four extended accretion flow–like structures in C 18 O that follow the edges of the outflows. We make various types of position–velocity cuts to compare with the outflows and find the extended structures are not consistent with the outflow emission, but rather more consistent with a simple infall model. We then use a dendrogram algorithm to isolate five substructures in position–position–velocity space. Four out of the five substructures fit well (>95%) with our simple infall model, with specific angular momenta between 2.7–6.9 × 10 −4 km s −1 pc and mass-infall rates of 0.5–1.1 × 10 −6 M ⊙ yr −1 . Better characterization of the physical structure in the supposed “outflow cavities” is important to disentangle the true outflow cavities and accretion flows. 
    more » « less
  3. Abstract We present Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array observations of the ∼10,000 au environment surrounding 21 protostars in the Orion A molecular cloud tracing outflows. Our sample is composed of Class 0 to flat-spectrum protostars, spanning the full ∼1 Myr lifetime. We derive the angular distribution of outflow momentum and energy profiles and obtain the first two-dimensional instantaneous mass, momentum, and energy ejection rate maps using our new approach: the pixel flux-tracing technique. Our results indicate that by the end of the protostellar phase, outflows will remove ∼2–4 M ⊙ from the surrounding ∼1 M ⊙ low-mass core. These high values indicate that outflows remove a significant amount of gas from their parent cores and continuous core accretion from larger scales is needed to replenish core material for star formation. This poses serious challenges to the concept of cores as well-defined mass reservoirs , and hence to the simplified core-to-star conversion prescriptions. Furthermore, we show that cavity opening angles, and momentum and energy distributions all increase with protostar evolutionary stage. This is clear evidence that even garden-variety protostellar outflows: (a) effectively inject energy and momentum into their environments on 10,000 au scales, and (b) significantly disrupt their natal cores, ejecting a large fraction of the mass that would have otherwise fed the nascent star. Our results support the conclusion that protostellar outflows have a direct impact on how stars get their mass, and that the natal sites of individual low-mass star formation are far more dynamic than commonly accepted theoretical paradigms. 
    more » « less
  4. Abstract

    We present observations of the Class 0 protostar IRAS 16544–1604 in CB 68 from the “Early Planet Formation in Embedded Disks (eDisk)” ALMA Large program. The ALMA observations target continuum and lines at 1.3 mm with an angular resolution of ∼5 au. The continuum image reveals a dusty protostellar disk with a radius of ∼30 au seen close to edge-on and asymmetric structures along both the major and minor axes. While the asymmetry along the minor axis can be interpreted as the effect of the dust flaring, the asymmetry along the major axis comes from a real nonaxisymmetric structure. The C18O image cubes clearly show the gas in the disk that follows a Keplerian rotation pattern around a ∼0.14Mcentral protostar. Furthermore, there are ∼1500 au scale streamer-like features of gas connecting from northeast, north–northwest, and northwest to the disk, as well as the bending outflow as seen in the12CO (2–1) emission. At the apparent landing point of the NE streamer, there is SO (65–54) and SiO (5–4) emission detected. The spatial and velocity structure of the NE streamer can be interpreted as a free-falling gas with a conserved specific angular momentum, and the detection of the SO and SiO emission at the tip of the streamer implies the presence of accretion shocks. Our eDisk observations have unveiled that the Class 0 protostar in CB 68 has a Keplerian-rotating disk with a flaring and nonaxisymmetric structure associated with accretion streamers and outflows.

     
    more » « less
  5. ABSTRACT

    This is the fourth paper of a series investigating the AGN fuelling/feedback processes in a sample of 11 nearby low-excitation radio galaxies (LERGs). In this paper, we present follow-up Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations of one source, NGC 3100, targeting the 12CO(1-0), 12CO(3-2), HCO+(4-3), SiO(3-2), and HNCO(6-5) molecular transitions. 12CO(1-0) and 12CO(3-2) lines are nicely detected and complement our previous 12CO(2-1) data. By comparing the relative strength of these three CO transitions, we find extreme gas excitation conditions (i.e. Tex ≳ 50 K) in regions that are spatially correlated with the radio lobes, supporting the case for a jet–ISM interaction. An accurate study of the CO kinematics demonstrates that although the bulk of the gas is regularly rotating, two distinct non-rotational kinematic components can be identified in the inner gas regions: one can be associated to inflow/outflow streaming motions induced by a two-armed spiral perturbation; the second one is consistent with a jet-induced outflow with vmax ≈ 200 km s−1 and $\dot{M}\lesssim 0.12$ M⊙ yr−1. These values indicate that the jet-CO coupling ongoing in NGC 3100 is only mildly affecting the gas kinematics, as opposed to what expected from existing simulations and other observational studies of (sub-)kpc scale jet–cold gas interactions. HCO+(4-3) emission is tentatively detected in a small area adjacent to the base of the northern radio lobe, possibly tracing a region of jet-induced gas compression. The SiO(3-2) and HNCO(6-5) shock tracers are undetected: this – along with the tentative HCO+(4-3) detection – may be consistent with a deficiency of very dense (i.e. ncrit > 106 cm−3) cold gas in the central regions of NGC 3100.

     
    more » « less