arXiv subjects

Hector G. Arce

Publications and source records attributed to Hector G. Arce.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

PROJECT-J: the shocking H2 outflow from HH46

We analyze the H2 emission observed in the HH46 Class I system as part of PROJECT-J (Protostellar Jets Cradle Tested with JWST), to investigate the origin and excitation of the warm molecular outflow. We used NIRSpec and MIRI spectral maps (1.6-27.9 microns) to trace the structure and physical conditions of the outflow. By fitting the H2 rotational diagrams with a multi-temperature gas model, we derived key physical parameters including temperature, extinction, column densities, and the ortho-to-para ratio. This information is combined with a detailed kinematical analysis and comparison with irradiated shock models. We find no evidence of H2 temperature or velocity stratification from the axis to the edge of the outflow, as would be expected in MHD disk-wind models and as observed in other outflows. Instead, the observations suggest that the H2 emission arises from shock interactions between jet bow shocks and/or wide-angle winds with the ambient medium and cavity walls. NIRSpec emission and velocity maps reveal expanding molecular shells, likely driven by the less luminous source in the binary system. We infer an accretion rate of less than 10^-9 solar masses per year for the secondary source, approximately one order of magnitude lower than that of the primary. The H2 emission is consistent with excitation by low-velocity (approximately 10 km/s) J-type shocks, irradiated by an external UV field that may originate from strong dissociative shocks driven by the atomic jet. Future JWST observations will further constrain the evolution of the expanding shell and the mechanisms driving the outflow.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2024

On the magnetic field properties of protostellar envelopes in Orion

We present 870 um polarimetric observations toward 61 protostars in the Orion molecular clouds, with ~400 au (1") resolution using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array. We successfully detect dust polarization and outflow emission in 56 protostars, in 16 of them the polarization is likely produced by self-scattering. Self-scattering signatures are seen in several Class 0 sources, suggesting that grain growth appears to be significant in disks at earlier protostellar phases. For the rest of the protostars, the dust polarization traces the magnetic field, whose morphology can be approximately classified into three categories: standard-hourglass, rotated-hourglass (with its axis perpendicular to outflow), and spiral-like morphology. 40.0% (+-3.0%) of the protostars exhibit a mean magnetic field direction approximately perpendicular to the outflow on several 100--1000 au scales. However, in the remaining sample, this relative orientation appears to be random, probably due to the complex set of morphologies observed. Furthermore, we classify the protostars into three types based on the C17O (3--2) velocity envelope's gradient: perpendicular to outflow, non-perpendicular to outflow, and unresolved gradient (<1.0~km/s/arcsec). In protostars with a velocity gradient perpendicular to outflow, the magnetic field lines are preferentially perpendicular to outflow, most of them exhibit a rotated hourglass morphology, suggesting that the magnetic field has been overwhelmed by gravity and angular momentum. Spiral-like magnetic fields are associated with envelopes having large velocity gradients, indicating that the rotation motions are strong enough to twist the field lines. All of the protostars with a standard-hourglass field morphology show no significant velocity gradient due to the strong magnetic braking.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2023

CMR exploration II -- filament identification with machine learning

We adopt magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) simulations that model the formation of filamentary molecular clouds via the collision-induced magnetic reconnection (CMR) mechanism under varying physical conditions. We conduct radiative transfer using RADMC-3D to generate synthetic dust emission of CMR filaments. We use the previously developed machine learning technique CASI-2D along with the diffusion model to identify the location of CMR filaments in dust emission. Both models showed a high level of accuracy in identifying CMR filaments in the test dataset, with detection rates of over 80% and 70%, respectively, at a false detection rate of 5%. We then apply the models to real Herschel dust observations of different molecular clouds, successfully identifying several high-confidence CMR filament candidates. Notably, the models are able to detect high-confidence CMR filament candidates in Orion A from dust emission, which have previously been identified using molecular line emission.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2021

Evolution and Kinematics of Protostellar Envelopes in the Perseus Molecular Cloud

We present a comprehensive analysis on the evolution of envelopes surrounding protostellar systems in the Perseus molecular cloud using data from the MASSES survey. We focus our attention to the C$^{18}$O(2--1) spectral line, and we characterize the shape, size, and orientation of 54 envelopes and measure their fluxes, velocity gradients, and line widths. To look for evolutionary trends, we compare these parameters to the bolometric temperature Tbol, a tracer of protostellar age. We find evidence that the angular difference between the elongation angle of the C$^{18}$O envelope and the outflow axis direction generally becomes increasingly perpendicular with increasing Tbol, suggesting the envelope evolution is directly affected by the outflow evolution. We show that this angular difference changes at Tbol = $53 \pm 20$ K, which includes the conventional delineation between Class 0 and I protostars of 70K. We compare the C$^{18}$O envelopes with larger gaseous structures in other molecular clouds and show that the velocity gradient increases with decreasing radius ($|\mathcal{G}| \sim R^{-0.72 \pm 0.06}$). From the velocity gradients we show that the specific angular momentum follows a power law fit $J/M \propto R^{1.83 \pm 0.05}$ for scales from 1pc down to $\sim$500 au, and we cannot rule out a possible flattening out at radii smaller than $\sim$1000 au.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2021

A Census of Protostellar Outflows in Nearby Molecular Clouds

We adopt the deep learning method CASI-3D (Convolutional Approach to Structure Identification-3D) to systemically identify protostellar outflows in 12CO and 13CO observations of the nearby molecular clouds, Ophiuchus, Taurus, Perseus and Orion. The total outflow masses are 267 Msun, 795 Msun, 1305 Msun and 6332 Msun for Ophiuchus, Taurus, Perseus and Orion, respectively. We show the outflow mass in each cloud is linearly proportional to the total number of young stellar objects. The estimated total 3D deprojected outflow energies are 9e45 ergs, 6e46 ergs, 1.2e47 ergs and 6e47 ergs for Ophiuchus, Taurus, Perseus and Orion, respectively. The energy associated with outflows is sufficient to offset turbulent dissipation at the current epoch for all four clouds. All clouds also exhibit a break point in the spatial power spectrum of the outflow prediction map, which likely corresponds to the typical outflow mass and energy injection scale.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2021

Evidence Suggesting that 'Oumuamua is the ~30 Myr-old product of a Molecular Cloud

The appearance of interstellar objects (ISOs) in the Solar System -- and specifically the arrival of 1I/'Oumuamua -- points to a significant number density of free-floating bodies in the solar neighborhood. We review the details of 'Oumuamua's pre-encounter galactic orbit, which intersected the Solar System at very nearly its maximum vertical and radial excursion relative to the galactic plane. These kinematic features are strongly emblematic of nearby young stellar associations. We obtain an a-priori order-of-magnitude age estimate for 'Oumuamua by comparing its orbit to the orbits of 50,899 F-type stars drawn from Gaia DR2; a diffusion model then suggests a $\sim$ 35 Myr dynamical age. We compare 'Oumuamua's orbit with the trajectories of individual nearby moving groups, confirming that its motion is fully consistent with membership in the Carina (CAR) moving group with an age around 30 Myr. We conduct Monte Carlo simulations that trace the orbits of test particles ejected from the stars in the Carina association. The simulations indicate that in order to uniformly populate the $\sim10^6$ pc$^3$ volume occupied by CAR members with the inferred number density, $n=0.2\,{\rm AU}^{-3}$, of ISOs implied by Pan-STARRS' detection of 'Oumuamua, the required ejection mass is $M\sim 500$ $M_{\rm Jup}$ per known star within the CAR association. This suggests that the Pan-STARRS observation is in significant tension with scenarios that posit 'Oumuamua's formation and ejection from a protostellar disk.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2021

Star Formation in a Strongly Magnetized Cloud

We study star formation in the Center Ridge 1 (CR1) clump in the Vela C giant molecular cloud, selected as a high column density region that shows the lowest level of dust continuum polarization angle dispersion, likely indicating that the magnetic field is relatively strong. We observe the source with the ALMA 7m-array at 1.05~mm and 1.3~mm wavelengths, which enable measurements of dust temperature, core mass and astrochemical deuteration. A relatively modest number of eleven dense cores are identified via their dust continuum emission, with masses spanning from 0.17 to 6.7 Msun. Overall CR1 has a relatively low compact dense gas fraction compared with other typical clouds with similar column densities, which may be a result of the strong magnetic field and/or the very early evolutionary stage of this region. The deuteration ratios, Dfrac, of the cores, measured with N2H+(3-2) and N2D+(3-2) lines, span from 0.011 to 0.85, with the latter being one of the highest values yet detected. The level of deuteration appears to decrease with evolution from prestellar to protostellar phase. A linear filament, running approximately parallel with the large scale magnetic field orientation, is seen connecting the two most massive cores, each having CO bipolar outflows aligned orthogonally to the filament. The filament contains the most deuterated core, likely to be prestellar and located midway between the protostars. The observations permit measurement of the full deuteration structure of the filament along its length, which we present. We also discuss the kinematics and dynamics of this structure, as well as of the dense core population.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2020

ALMA observations of envelopes around first hydrostatic core candidates

We present ALMA 3 mm molecular line and continuum observations with a resolution of ~3.5" towards five first hydrostatic core (FHSC) candidates (L1451-mm, Per-bolo 58, Per-bolo 45, L1448-IRS2E and Cha-MMS1). Our goal is to characterize their envelopes and identify the most promising sources that could be bona fide FHSCs. We identify two candidates which are consistent with an extremely young evolutionary state (L1451-mm and Cha-MMS1), with L1451-mm being the most promising FHSC candidate. Although our envelope observations cannot rule out Cha-MMS1 as a FHSC yet, the properties of its CO outflow and SED published in recent studies are in better agreement with the predictions for a young protostar. For the remaining three sources, our observations favor a prestellar nature for Per-bolo 45 and rule out the rest as FHSC candidates. Per-bolo 58 is fully consistent with being a Class 0, while L1448 IRS2E shows no emission of high-density tracers (NH2D and N2H+) at the location of the previously identified compact continuum source, which is also undetected in our observations. Thus we argue that there is no embedded source at the presumptive location of the FHSC candidate L1448 IRS2E. We propose instead, that what was thought to be emission from the presumed L1448 IRS2E outflow corresponds to outflow emission from a nearby Class 0 system, deflected by the dense ambient material. We compare the properties of the FHSC candidates studied in this work and the literature, which shows that L1451-mm appears as possibly the youngest source with a confirmed outflow.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2020

Relative Alignment between Dense Molecular Cores and Ambient Magnetic Field: The Synergy of Numerical Models and Observations

The role played by magnetic field during star formation is an important topic in astrophysics. We investigate the correlation between the orientation of star-forming cores (as defined by the core major axes) and ambient magnetic field directions in 1) a 3D MHD simulation, 2) synthetic observations generated from the simulation at different viewing angles, and 3) observations of nearby molecular clouds. We find that the results on relative alignment between cores and background magnetic field in synthetic observations slightly disagree with those measured in fully 3D simulation data, which is partly because cores identified in projected 2D maps tend to coexist within filamentary structures, while 3D cores are generally more rounded. In addition, we examine the progression of magnetic field from pc- to core-scale in the simulation, which is consistent with the anisotropic core formation model that gas preferably flow along the magnetic field toward dense cores. When comparing the observed cores identified from the GBT Ammonia Survey (GAS) and Planck polarization-inferred magnetic field orientations, we find that the relative core-field alignment has a regional dependence among different clouds. More specifically, we find that dense cores in the Taurus molecular cloud tend to align perpendicular to the background magnetic field, while those in Perseus and Ophiuchus tend to have random (Perseus) or slightly parallel (Ophiuchus) orientations with respect to the field. We argue that this feature of relative core-field orientation could be used to probe the relative significance of the magnetic field within the cloud.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2019

Nobeyama 45-m Mapping Observations toward Orion A.I. Molecular Outflows

We conducted an exploration of 12CO molecular outflows in the Orion A giant molecular cloud to investigate outflow feedback using 12CO (J = 1-0) and 13CO (J = 1-0) data obtained by the Nobeyama 45-m telescope. In the region excluding the center of OMC 1, we identified 44 12CO (including 17 newly detected) outflows based on the unbiased and systematic procedure of automatically determining the velocity range of the outflows and separating the cloud and outflow components. The optical depth of the 12CO emission in the detected outflows is estimated to be approximately 5. The total momentum and energy of the outflows, corrected for optical depth, are estimated to be 1.6 x 10 2 M km s-1 and 1.5 x 10 46 erg, respectively. The momentum and energy ejection rate of the outflows are estimated to be 36% and 235% of the momentum and energy dissipation rates of the cloud turbulence, respectively. Furthermore, the ejection rates of the outflows are comparable to those of the expanding molecular shells estimated by Feddersen et al. (2018, ApJ, 862, 121). Cloud turbulence cannot be sustained by the outflows and shells unless the energy conversion efficiency is as high as 20%.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2019

An Episodic Wide-angle Outflow in HH 46/47

During star formation, the accretion disk drives fast MHD winds which usually contain two components, a collimated jet and a radially distributed wide-angle wind. These winds entrain the surrounding ambient gas producing molecular outflows. We report recent observation of 12CO (2-1) emission of the HH 46/47 molecular outflow by the Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array, in which we identify multiple wide-angle outflowing shell structures in both the blue and red-shifted outflow lobes. These shells are highly coherent in position-position-velocity space, extending to >40-50 km/s in velocity and 10^4 au in space with well defined morphology and kinematics. We suggest these outflowing shells are the result of the entrainment of ambient gas by a series of outbursts from an intermittent wide-angle wind. Episodic outbursts in collimated jets are commonly observed, yet detection of a similar behavior in wide-angle winds has been elusive. Here we show clear evidence that the wide-angle component of the HH 46/47 protostellar outflows experiences similar variability seen in the collimated component.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2019

Droplets I: Pressure-Dominated Sub-0.1 pc Coherent Structures in L1688 and B18

We present the observation and analysis of newly discovered coherent structures in the L1688 region of Ophiuchus and the B18 region of Taurus. Using data from the Green Bank Ammonia Survey (GAS), we identify regions of high density and near-constant, almost-thermal, velocity dispersion. Eighteen coherent structures are revealed, twelve in L1688 and six in B18, each of which shows a sharp "transition to coherence" in velocity dispersion around its periphery. The identification of these structures provides a chance to study the coherent structures in molecular clouds statistically. The identified coherent structures have a typical radius of 0.04 pc and a typical mass of 0.4 Msun, generally smaller than previously known coherent cores identified by Goodman et al. (1998), Caselli et al. (2002), and Pineda et al. (2010). We call these structures "droplets." We find that unlike previously known coherent cores, these structures are not virially bound by self-gravity and are instead predominantly confined by ambient pressure. The droplets have density profiles shallower than a critical Bonnor-Ebert sphere, and they have a velocity (VLSR) distribution consistent with the dense gas motions traced by NH3 emission. These results point to a potential formation mechanism through pressure compression and turbulent processes in the dense gas. We present a comparison with a magnetohydrodynamic simulation of a star-forming region, and we speculate on the relationship of droplets with larger, gravitationally bound coherent cores, as well as on the role that droplets and other coherent structures play in the star formation process.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2017

The Green Bank Ammonia Survey: Observations of Hierarchical Dense Gas Structures in Cepheus-L1251

We use Green Bank Ammonia Survey observations of NH$_3$ (1,1) and (2,2) emission with 32'' FWHM resolution from a ~ 10 pc$^{2}$ portion of the Cepheus-L1251 molecular cloud to identify hierarchical dense gas structures. Our dendrogram analysis of the NH$_3$ data results in 22 top-level structures, which reside within 13 lower-level, parent structures. The structures are compact (0.01 pc $\lesssim R_{eff} \lesssim$ 0.1 pc) and are spatially correlated with the highest H$_2$ column density portions of the cloud. We also compare the ammonia data to a catalog of dense cores identified by higher-resolution (18.2'' FWHM) Herschel Space Observatory observations of dust continuum emission from Cepheus-L1251. Maps of kinetic gas temperature, velocity dispersion, and NH$_3$ column density, derived from detailed modeling of the NH$_3$ data, are used to investigate the stability and chemistry of the ammonia-identified and Herschel-identified structures. We show that the dust and dense gas in the structures have similar temperatures, with median $T_{dust}$ and $T_K$ measurements of 11.7 $\pm$ 1.1 K and 10.3 $\pm$ 2.0 K, respectively. Based on a virial analysis, we find that the ammonia-identified structures are gravitationally dominated, yet may be in or near a state of virial equilibrium. Meanwhile, the majority of the Herschel-identified dense cores appear to be not bound by their own gravity and instead confined by external pressure. CCS $(2_0-1_0)$ and HC$_5$N $(9-8)$ emission from the region reveal broader line widths and centroid velocity offsets when compared to the NH$_3$ (1,1) emission in some cases, likely due to these carbon-based molecules tracing the turbulent outer layers of the dense cores.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2017

A turbulent origin for the complex envelope kinematics in the young low-mass core Per-Bolo 58

We use CARMA 3mm continuum and molecular lines (NH2D, N2H+, HCO+, HCN and CS) at ~1000 au resolution to characterize the structure and kinematics of the envelope surrounding the deeply embedded first core candidate Per-Bolo 58. The line profile of the observed species shows two distinct peaks separated by 0.4-0.6 km/s, most likely arising from two different optically thin velocity components rather than the product of self-absorption in an optically thick line. The two velocity components, each with a mass of ~0.5-0.6 Msun, overlap spatially at the position of the continuum emission, and produce a general gradient along the outflow direction. We investigate whether these observations are consistent with infall in a turbulent and magnetized envelope. We compare the morphology and spectra of the N2H+(1-0) with synthetic observations of an MHD simulation that considers the collapse of an isolated core that is initially perturbed with a turbulent field. The proposed model matches the data in the production of two velocity components, traced by the isolated hyperfine line of the N2H+(1-0) spectra and shows a general agreement in morphology and velocity field. We also use large maps of the region to compare the kinematics of the core with that of the surrounding large-scale filamentary structure and find that accretion from the large-scale filament could also explain the complex kinematics exhibited by this young dense core.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2017

ALMA Observations of Starless Core Substructure in Ophiuchus

Compact substructure is expected to arise in a starless core as mass becomes concentrated in the central region likely to form a protostar. Additionally, multiple peaks may form if fragmentation occurs. We present ALMA Cycle 2 observations of 60 starless and protostellar cores in the Ophiuchus molecular cloud. We detect eight compact substructures which are >15 arcsec from the nearest Spitzer YSO. Only one of these has strong evidence for being truly starless after considering ancillary data, e.g., from Herschel and X-ray telescopes. An additional extended emission structure has tentative evidence for starlessness. The number of our detections is consistent with estimates from a combination of synthetic observations of numerical simulations and analytical arguments. This result suggests that a similar ALMA study in the Chamaeleon I cloud, which detected no compact substructure in starless cores, may be due to the peculiar evolutionary state of cores in that cloud.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2016

ALMA Cycle 1 Observations of the HH46/47 Molecular Outflow: Structure, Entrainment and Core Impact

We present ALMA Cycle 1 observations of the HH46/47 molecular outflow using combined 12m array and ACA observations. The improved angular resolution and sensitivity of our multi-line maps reveal structures that help us study the entrainment process in much more detail and allow us to obtain more precise estimates of outflow properties than previous observations. We use 13CO(1-0) and C18O(1-0) emission to correct for the 12CO(1-0) optical depth to accurately estimate the outflow mass, momentum and kinetic energy. This correction increases the estimates of the mass, momentum and kinetic energy by factors of about 9, 5 and 2, respectively, with respect to estimates assuming optically thin emission. The new 13CO and C18O data also allow us to trace denser and slower outflow material than that traced by the 12CO maps, and they reveal an outflow cavity wall at very low velocities (as low as 0.2km/s with respect to the cores central velocity). Adding with the slower material traced only by 13CO and C18O, there is another factor of 3 increase in the mass estimate and 50% increase in the momentum estimate. The estimated outflow properties indicate that the outflow is capable of dispersing the parent core within the typical lifetime of the embedded phase of a low-mass protostar, and that it is responsible for a core-to-star efficiency of 1/4 to 1/3. We find that the outflow cavity wall is composed of multiple shells associated with a series of jet bow-shock events. Within about 3000AU of the protostar the 13CO and C18O emission trace a circumstellar envelope with both rotation and infall motions, which we compare with a simple analytic model. The CS(2-1) emission reveals tentative evidence of a slowly-moving rotating outflow, which we suggest is entrained not only poloidally but also toroidally by a disk wind that is launched from relatively large radii from the source.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2016

The Turbulent Origin of Outflow and Spin Misalignment in Multiple Star Systems

The protostellar outflows of wide-separation forming binaries frequently appear misaligned. We use magneto-hydrodynamic simulations to investigate the alignment of protostellar spin and molecular outflows for forming binary pairs. We show that the protostellar pairs, which form from turbulent fragmentation within a single parent core, have randomly oriented angular momenta. Although the pairs migrate to closer separations, their spins remain partially misaligned. We produce $^{12}$CO(2-1) synthetic observations of the simulations and characterize the outflow orientation in the emission maps. The CO-identified outflows exhibit a similar random distribution and are also statistically consistent with the observed distribution of molecular outflows. We conclude that observed misalignment provides a clear signature of binary formation via turbulent fragmentation. The persistence of misaligned outflows and stellar spins following dynamical evolution may provide a signature of binary origins for more evolved multiple star systems.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2016

Misalignment of Outflow Axes in the Proto-Multiple Systems in Perseus

We investigate the alignment between outflow axes in nine of the youngest binary/multiple systems in the Perseus Molecular Cloud. These systems have typical member spacing larger than 1000 AU. For outflow identification, we use 12CO(2-1) and 12CO(3-2) data from a large survey with the Sub- millimeter Array: Mass Assembly of Stellar Systems and their Evolution with the SMA (MASSES). The distribution of outflow orientations in the binary pairs is consistent with random or preferentially anti-aligned distributions, demonstrating that these outflows are misaligned. This result suggests that these systems are possibly formed in environments where the distribution of angular momentum is complex and disordered, and these systems do not come from the same co-rotating structures or from an initial cloud with aligned vectors of angular momentum.

astro-ph.SR↗