Skip to main content
SearchLoginLogin or Signup

Molecular Jet Launched at an Unprecedented Early Phase of Protostellar evolution

Presentation #237.03 in the session Young Stellar Objects.

Published onJun 29, 2022
Molecular Jet Launched at an Unprecedented Early Phase of Protostellar evolution

Protostellar outflows and jets play a vital role in star formation as they carry away excess angular momentum from the inner disk surface, allowing the material to be transferred toward the central protostar. Theoretically, low velocity and poorly collimated outflows appear from the beginning of the collapse, at the first hydrostatic core (FHSC) stage. With growing protostellar core mass, high-density jets are launched which entrain an outflow from the infalling envelope. Until now, molecular jets have been observed at high velocity (≳ 100 km/s) in early Class 0 protostars. We, for the first time, detect a dense molecular jet in SiO emission with small-velocity (~ 4.2 km s-1, deprojected ~ 24 km s-1) from source G208.89-20.04Walma (hereafter, G208Walma) using ALMA Band 6 observations. This object has some characteristics of FHSCs, such as a small outflow/jet velocity, extended 1.3 mm continuum emission, and N2D+ line emission. Additional characteristics, however, are typical of early protostars: collimated outflow and SiO jet. The full extent of the outflow corresponds to a dynamical time scale of ~ 930+200-100 years. The spectral energy distribution also suggests a very young source having an upper limit of Tbol ~ 31 K and Lbol ~ 0.8 L. We conclude that G208Walma is likely in the transition phase from FHSC to protostar, and the molecular jet is launched within a few hundred years of initial collapse. Therefore, G208Walma could serve as the earliest discovered protostellar phase with molecular jet.

Comments
0
comment
No comments here