Crescent-Shaped Molecular Outflow from the Intermediate-mass Protostar DK Cha Revealed by ALMA

We report on an Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) study of the Class I or II intermediate-mass protostar DK Cha in the Chamaeleon II region. The 12CO (J=2-1) images have an angular resolution of ~1'' (~250 au) and show high-velocity blueshifted (>70 km s-1) and redshifted (>50 km s-1) emissions which have 3000 au scale crescent-shaped structures around the protostellar disk traced in the 1.3mm continuum. Because the high-velocity components of the CO emission are associated with the protostar, we concluded that the emission traces the pole-on outflow. The blueshifted outflow lobe has a clear layered velocity gradient with a higher velocity component located on the inner side of the crescent shape, which can be explained by a model of an outflow with a higher velocity in the inner radii. Based on the directly driven outflow scenario, we estimated the driving radii from the observed outflow velocities and found that the driving region extends over two orders of magnitude. The 13CO emission traces a complex envelope structure with arc-like substructures with lengths of ~1000au. We identified the arc-like structures as streamers because they appear to be connected to a rotating infalling envelope. DK Cha is useful for understanding characteristics that are visible by looking at nearly face-on configurations of young protostellar systems, providing an alternative perspective for studying the star-formation process.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ. 12 pages, 5 figure

Ring Gap Structure around Class I Protostar WL 17

WL 17 is a Class I object and was considered to have a ring-hole structure. We analyzed the structure around WL 17 to investigate the detailed properties of WL 17. We used ALMA archival data, which have a higher angular resolution than previous observations. We investigated the WL 17 system with the 1.3 mm dust continuum and 12CO and C18O (J = 2-1) line emissions. The dust continuum emission showed a clear ring structure with inner and outer edges of ~11 and ~21 au, respectively. In addition, we detected an inner disk of < 5 au radius enclosing the central star within the ring, the first observation of this structure. Thus, WL 17 has a ring-gap structure, not a ring-hole structure. We did not detect any marked emission in either the gap or inner disk, indicating that there is no sign of a planet, circumplanetary disk, or binary companion. We identified the base of both blue-shifted and red-shifted outflows based on the 12CO emission, which is clearly associated with the disk around WL 17. The outflow mass ejection rate is ~3.6x10^-7 Msun yr-1 and the dynamical timescale is as short as ~ 10^4 yr. The C18O emission showed that an inhomogeneous infalling envelope, which can induce episodic mass accretion, is distributed in the region within ~1000 au from the central protostar. With these new findings, we can constrain the planet formation and dust growth scenarios in the accretion phase of star formation.Comment: 22 pages, 9 figures, Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

An Extremely Young Protostellar Core, MMS 1/ OMC-3: Episodic Mass Ejection History Traced by the Micro SiO Jet

We present ${\sim}0.2$ arcsec ($\sim$80 au) resolution observations of the CO (2-1) and SiO (5-4) lines made with the Atacama large millimeter/submillimeter array toward an extremely young intermediate-mass protostellar source (t$_{\rm dyn}<$1000 years), MMS 1 located in the Orion Molecular Cloud-3 region. We have successfully imaged a very compact CO molecular outflow associated with MMS 1, having deprojected lobe sizes of $\sim$18000 au (red-shifted lobe) and $\sim$35000 au (blue-shifted lobe). We have also detected an extremely compact ($\lesssim$1000 au) and collimated SiO protostellar jet within the CO outflow. The maximum deprojected jet speed is measured to be as high as 93 km s$^{-1}$. The SiO jet wiggles and displays a chain of knots. Our detection of the molecular outflow and jet is the first direct evidence that MMS 1 already hosts a protostar. The position-velocity diagram obtained from the SiO emission shows two distinct structures: (i) bow-shocks associated with the tips of the outflow, and (ii) a collimated jet, showing the jet velocities linearly increasing with the distance from the driving source. Comparisons between the observations and numerical simulations quantitatively share similarities such as multiple-mass ejection events within the jet and Hubble-like flow associated with each mass ejection event. Finally, while there is a weak flux decline seen in the 850 $\mu$m light curve obtained with JCMT/SCUBA 2 toward MMS 1, no dramatic flux change events are detected. This suggests that there has not been a clear burst event within the last 8 years.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figures, Accepted for publication in Ap

Revealing Multiple Nested Molecular Outflows with Rotating Signatures in HH270mms1-A with ALMA

We present molecular line observations of the protostellar outflow associated with HH270mms1 in the Orion B molecular cloud with ALMA. The ^12 CO ( J = 3−2) emissions show that the outflow velocity structure consists of four distinct components of low (≲10 km s ^−1 ), intermediate (∼10–25 km s ^−1 ) and high (≳40 km s ^−1 ) velocities in addition to the entrained gas velocity (∼25–40 km s ^−1 ). The high- and intermediate-velocity flows have well-collimated structures surrounded by the low-velocity flow. The chain of knots is embedded in the high-velocity flow or jet, which is the evidence of episodic mass ejections induced by time-variable mass accretion. We could detect the velocity gradients perpendicular to the outflow axis in both the low- and intermediate-velocity flows. We confirmed the rotation of the envelope and disk in the ^13 CO and C ^17 O emission and found that their velocity gradients are the same as those of the outflow. Thus, we concluded that the velocity gradients in the low- and intermediate-velocity flows are due to the outflow rotation. Using observational outflow properties, we estimated the outflow launching radii to be 67.1–77.1 au for the low-velocity flow and 13.3–20.8 au for the intermediate-velocity flow. Although we could not detect the rotation in the jets due to the limited spatial resolution, we estimated the jet launching radii to be (2.36–3.14) × 10 ^−2 au using the observed velocity of each knot. Thus, the jet is driven from the inner disk region. We could identify the launching radii of distinct velocity components within a single outflow with all the prototypical characteristics expected from recent theoretical works

An ALMA-resolved View of 7000 au Protostellar Gas Ring around the Class I Source CrA-IRS 2 as a Possible Sign of Magnetic Flux Advection

Transferring a significant fraction of the magnetic flux from a dense cloud core is essential in the star formation process. A ringlike structure produced by magnetic flux loss has been predicted theoretically, but no observational identification has been presented. We have performed ALMA observations of the Class I protostar IRS 2 in the Corona Australis star-forming region and resolved a distinctive gas ring in the C ^18 O ( J = 2–1) line emission. The center of this gas ring is ∼5000 au away from the protostar, with a diameter of ∼7000 au. The radial velocity of the gas is ≲ 1 km s ^−1 blueshifted from that of the protostar, with a possible expanding feature judged from the velocity-field (moment 1) map and position–velocity diagram. These features are either observationally new or have been discovered but not discussed in depth because they are difficult to explain by well-studied protostellar phenomena such as molecular outflows and accretion streamers. A plausible interpretation is a magnetic wall created by the advection of magnetic flux, which is theoretically expected in the Class 0/I phase during star formation as a removal mechanism of magnetic flux. Similar structures reported in the other young stellar sources could likely be candidates formed by the same mechanism, encouraging us to revisit the issue of magnetic flux transport in the early stages of star formation from an observational perspective

An Extremely Young Protostellar Core, MMS 1/OMC-3: Episodic Mass Ejection History Traced by the Micro SiO Jet

We present ∼0.″2 (∼80 au) resolution observations of the CO(2–1) and SiO(5–4) lines made with the Atacama large millimeter/submillimeter array toward an extremely young intermediate-mass protostellar source ( t _dyn < 1000 yr), MMS 1 located in the Orion Molecular Cloud-3 region. We have successfully imaged a very compact CO molecular outflow associated with MMS 1, having deprojected lobe sizes of ∼1800 au (redshifted lobe) and ∼2800 au (blueshifted lobe). We have also detected an extremely compact (≲1000 au) and collimated SiO protostellar jet within the CO outflow. The maximum deprojected jet speed is measured to be as high as 93 km s ^−1 . The SiO jet wiggles and displays a chain of knots. Our detection of the molecular outflow and jet is the first direct evidence that MMS 1 already hosts a protostar. The position–velocity diagram obtained from the SiO emission shows two distinct structures: (i) bow shocks associated with the tips of the outflow, and (ii) a collimated jet, showing the jet velocities linearly increasing with the distance from the driving source. Comparisons between the observations and numerical simulations quantitatively share similarities such as multiple-mass ejection events within the jet and Hubble-like flow associated with each mass ejection event. Finally, while there is a weak flux decline seen in the 850 μ m light curve obtained with the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope/SCUBA 2 toward MMS 1, no dramatic flux change events are detected. This suggests that there has not been a clear burst event within the last 8 yr

Internal 1000 au Scale Structures of the R CrA Cluster-forming Cloud. I. Filamentary Structures

We report Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array/Atacama Compact Array observations of a high-density region of the Corona Australis cloud forming a young star cluster, and the results of resolving internal structures. In addition to embedded Class 0/I protostars in the continuum, a number of complex dense filamentary structures are detected in the C ^18 O and SO lines by the 7 m array. These are substructures of the molecular clump that are detected by the total power array as extended emission. We identify 101 and 37 filamentary structures with widths of a few thousand astronomical units in C ^18 O and SO, respectively, which are called feathers . The typical column density of the feathers in C ^18 O is about 10 ^22 cm ^−2 , and the volume density and line mass are ∼10 ^5 cm ^−3 and a few M _☉ pc ^−1 , respectively. This line mass is significantly smaller than the critical line mass expected for cold and dense gas. These structures have complex velocity fields, indicating a turbulent interior. The number of feathers associated with Class 0/I protostars is only ∼10, indicating that most of them do not form stars but rather are transient structures. The formation of feathers can be interpreted as a result of colliding gas flow because the morphology is well reproduced by MHD simulations, and this is supported by the presence of H i shells in the vicinity. The colliding gas flows may accumulate gas and form filaments and feathers, and trigger the active star formation of the R CrA cluster