arXiv subjects

Masahiro N. Machida

Publications and source records attributed to Masahiro N. Machida.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2025

ALMA 0.1 pc View of Molecular Clouds Associated with High-Mass Protostellar Systems in the Small Magellanic Cloud: Are Low-Metallicity Clouds Filamentary or Not?

Filamentary molecular clouds are an essential intermediate stage in the star formation process. To test whether these structures are universal throughout cosmic star formation history, it is crucial to study low-metallicity environments within the Local Group. We present an ALMA analysis of the ALMA archival data at the spatial resolution of $\sim$0.1 pc for 17 massive young stellar objects (YSOs) in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC; Z $\sim$0.2 $Z_{\odot}$). This sample represents approximately 30% of the YSOs confirmed by Spitzer spectroscopy. Early ALMA studies of the SMC have shown that the CO emission line traces an H$_2$ number density of $\gtrsim$10$^4$ cm$^{-3}$, an order of magnitude higher than in the typical Galactic environments. Using the CO($J$ = 3-2) data, we investigated the spatial and velocity distribution of molecular clouds. Our analysis shows that about 60% of the clouds have steep radial profiles from the spine of the elongated structures, while the remaining clouds have a smooth distribution and are characterized by lower brightness temperatures. We categorized the former as filaments and the latter as non-filaments. Some of the filamentary clouds are associated with YSOs with outflows and exhibit higher temperatures, likely reflecting their formation conditions, suggesting that these clouds are younger than non-filamentary ones. This indicates that even if filaments form during star formation, their steep structures may become less prominent and transit to a lower-temperature state. Such transitions in structure and temperature have not been reported in metal-rich regions, highlighting a key behavior for characterizing the evolution of the interstellar medium and star formation in low-metallicity environments.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2025

Tracking Star-Forming Cores as Mass Reservoirs in Clustered and Isolated Regions Using Numerical Passive Tracer Particles

Understanding the physical properties of star-forming cores as mass reservoirs for protostars, and the impact of turbulence, is crucial in star formation studies. We implemented passive tracer particles in clump-scale numerical simulations with turbulence strengths of $\mathcal{M}_{\rm rms} = 2, 10$. Unlike core identification methods used in observational studies, we identified 260 star-forming cores using a new method based on tracer particles falling onto protostars. Our findings reveal that star-forming cores do not necessarily coincide with high-density regions when nearby stars are present, as gas selectively accretes onto protostars, leading to clumpy, fragmented structures. We calculated convex hull cores from star-forming cores and defined their filling factors. Regardless of turbulence strength, convex hull cores with lower filling factors tend to contain more protostars and have larger masses and sizes, indicating that cores in clustered regions are more massive and larger than those in isolated regions. Thus, the filling factor serves as a key indicator for distinguishing between isolated and clustered star-forming regions and may provide insights into the star formation processes within clustered regions. We also found that most convex hull cores are gravitationally bound. However, in the $\mathcal{M}_{\rm rms} = 10$ model, there are more low-mass, unbound convex hull cores compared to the $\mathcal{M}_{\rm rms} = 2$ model. In the $\mathcal{M}_{\rm rms} = 10$ model, 16% of the convex hull cores are unbound, which may be explained by the inertial-inflow model. These findings highlight the influence of turbulence strength on the mass and gravitational stability of cores.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2024

Cloud Dissipation and Disk Wind in the Late Phase of Star Formation

We perform a long-term simulation of star and disk formation using three-dimensional non-ideal magnetohydrodynamics. The simulation starts from a prestellar cloud and proceeds through the long-term evolution of the circumstellar disk until $\sim 1.5\times10^5$ yr after protostar formation. The disk has size $\lesssim 50$ au and little substructure in the main accretion phase because of the action of magnetic braking and the magnetically-driven outflow to remove angular momentum. The main accretion phase ends when the outflow breaks out of the cloud, causing the envelope mass to decrease rapidly. The outflow subsequently weakens as the mass accretion rate also weakens. While the envelope-to-disk accretion continues, the disk grows gradually and develops transient spiral structures due to gravitational instability. When the envelope-to-disk accretion ends, the disk becomes stable and reaches a size $\gtrsim 300$ au. In addition, about 30% of the initial cloud mass has been ejected by the outflow. A significant finding of this work is that after the envelope dissipates, a revitalization of the wind occurs, and there is mass ejection from the disk surface that lasts until the end of the simulation. This mass ejection (or disk wind) is generated since the magnetic pressure significantly dominates both the ram pressure and thermal pressure above and below the disk at this stage. Using the angular momentum flux and mass loss rate estimated from the disk wind, the disk dissipation timescale is estimated to be $\sim10^6$ yr.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2024

Delivery of Dust Particles from Protoplanetary Disks onto Circumplanetary Disks of Giant Planets

Principal regular satellites of gas giants are thought to be formed by the accumulation of solid materials in circumplanetary disks (CPDs). While there has been significant progress in the study of satellite formation in CPDs, details of the supply of satellite building blocks to CPDs remain unclear. We performed orbital integration of solid particles in the protoplanetary disk (PPD) approaching a planet, considering the gas drag force using the results of three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations of a local region around the planet. We investigated planetary-mass dependence of the capture positions and capture rates of dust particles accreting onto the CPD. We also examined the degree of dust retention in accreting gas onto the CPD, which is important for determining the ratio of dust-to-gas inflow rates, a key parameter in satellite formation. We found that the degree of dust retention increases with increasing planetary mass for a given dust scale height in the PPD. In the case of a small planet ($M_{\rm p}=0.2M_{\rm Jup}$), most particles with insufficient initial altitudes in the PPD are isolated from the gas in the accreting region. On the other hand, in the case of a massive planet ($M_{\rm p}=1M_{\rm Jup}$), dust particles can be coupled to the vertically accreting gas, even when the dust scale height is about $10-30$\% of the gas scale height. The results of this study can be used for models of dust delivery and satellite formation in the CPDs of gas giants of various masses, including exoplanets.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2024

Internal 1000 AU-scale Structures of the R CrA Cluster-forming Cloud -- I: Filamentary Structures

We report on ALMA ACA 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 continuum, a number of complex dense filamentary structures are detected in the C18O and SO lines by the 7m array. These are sub-structures of the molecular clump that are detected by the TP array as the extended emission. We identify 101 and 37 filamentary structures with a few thousand AU widths in C18O and SO, respectively, called as feathers. The typical column density of the feathers in C18O is about 10^{22} cm^{-2}, and the volume density and line mass are ~ 10^5 cm^{-3}, and a few times M_{sun} 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 internal property. The number of feathers associated with Class 0/I protostars is only ~ 10, indicating that most of them do not form stars but rather being transient structures. The formation of feathers can be interpreted as a result of colliding gas flow as the morphology well reproduced by MHD simulations, supported by the the presence of HI 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.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2024

Discovery of Asymmetric Spike-like Structures of the 10 au Disk around the Very Low-luminosity Protostar Embedded in the Taurus Dense Core MC 27/L1521F with ALMA

Recent Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations have revealed an increasing number of compact protostellar disks with radii of less than a few tens of astronomical units and that young Class 0/I objects have an intrinsic size diversity. To deepen our understanding of the origin of such tiny disks, we performed the highest-resolution configuration observations with ALMA at a beam size of $\sim$0$''$03 (4 au) on the very low-luminosity Class 0 protostar embedded in the Taurus dense core MC 27/L1521F. The 1.3 mm continuum measurement successfully resolved a tiny, faint ($\sim$1 mJy) disk with a major axis length of $\sim$10 au, one of the smallest examples in the ALMA protostellar studies. In addition, we detected spike-like components in the northeastern direction at the disk edge. Gravitational instability or other fragmentation mechanisms cannot explain the structures, given the central stellar mass of $\sim$0.2 $M_{\odot}$ and the disk mass of $\gtrsim$10$^{-4}$ $M_{\odot}$. Instead, we propose that these small spike structures were formed by a recent dynamic magnetic flux transport event due to interchange instability that would be favorable to occur if the parental core has a strong magnetic field. The presence of complex arc-like structures on a larger ($\sim$2000 au) scale in the same direction as the spike structures suggests that the event was not single. Such episodic, dynamical events may play an important role in maintaining the compact nature of the protostellar disk in the complex gas envelope during the main accretion phase.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2024

Multiple Outflows around a Single Protostar IRAS 15398$-$3359

We present the results of our mosaic observations of a single Class 0 protostar IRAS 15398$-$3359 with Atacama Compact Array (ACA) in the CO $J=2\mbox{-}1$ line. The new observations covering a $\sim\!2'$ square region revealed elongated redshifted and blueshifted components, which are located at distances of $\sim\!30''\mbox{-}75''$ on the northern and southern sides of the protostar, respectively, in addition to the previously observed primary and secondary outflows. These elongated components exhibit Hubble-law like velocity structures, i.e., an increase of velocity with increasing distance from the protostar, suggesting that it is the third outflow associated with the protostar. Besides, a new redshifted component is detected at radii of $\sim\!40''\mbox{-}75''$ on the northwestern side of the protostar. This redshifted component also exhibits a Hubble-law like velocity profile, which could be the counterpart of the secondary outflow mostly detected at blueshifted velocities in a previous study. The three outflows are all misaligned by $\sim\!20\mbox{-}90^\circ$, and the dynamical timescale of the primary outflow is shorter than those of the other outflows approximately by an order of magnitude. These facts hint that the outflow launch direction has significantly changed with time. The outflow direction may change if the rotational axis and the magnetic field are misaligned, or if the dense core is turbulent. We favor the second scenario as the origin of the multiple outflows in IRAS 15398$-$3359 based on a comparison between the observational results and numerical simulations.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2024

Outflows Driven from a Magnetic Pseudodisk

Outflows play a pivotal role in star formation as one of its most visible markers and a means of transporting mass, momentum, and angular momentum from the infalling gas into the surrounding molecular cloud. Their wide reach (at least thousands of au) is a contrast to typical disk sizes ($\sim 10-100$ au). We employ high-resolution three-dimensional nested-grid nonideal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations to study outflow properties in the Class 0 phase. We find that no disk wind is driven from the extended centrifugal disk that has weak magnetic coupling. The low-velocity winds emerge instead from the infalling magnetic pseudodisk. Much of the disk actually experiences an infall of matter rather than outflowing gas. Some of the pseudodisk wind (PD-wind) moves inward to regions above the disk and either falls onto the disk or proceeds upward. The upward flow gives the impression of a disk wind above a certain height even if the gas is originally emerging from the pseudodisk. The PD-wind has the strongest flow coming from a disk interaction zone that lies just outside the disk and is an interface between the inwardly advected magnetic field of the pseudodisk and the outwardly diffusing magnetic field of the disk. The low-velocity wind exhibits the features of a flow driven by the magnetic pressure gradient force in some regions and those of a magnetocentrifugal wind in other regions. We interpret the structure and dynamics of the outflow zone in terms of the basic physics of gravity, angular momentum, magnetic fields, and nonideal MHD.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2024

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 $μ$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.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2024

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 12CO(J = 3 - 2) emissions show that the outflow velocity structure consists of four distinct components of low ($\gtrsim$ 10 km s-1), intermediate (~ 10 - 25 km s-1) and high ($\gtrsim$ 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 13CO and C17O 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) x 10^-2 au using the observed velocity of each knots. 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.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2023

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.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2023

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 ring-like 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 $\sim$5,000 au away from the protostar, with a diameter of $\sim$7,000 au. The radial velocity of the gas is $\lesssim1$ 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.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2023

Secondary outflow driven by the protostar Ser-emb 15 in Serpens

We present the detection of a secondary outflow associated with a Class I source, Ser-emb 15, in the Serpens Molecular Cloud. We reveal two pairs of molecular outflows consisting of three lobes, namely primary and secondary outflows, using ALMA 12CO and SiO line observations at a resolution of 318 au. The secondary outflow is elongated approximately perpendicular to the axis of the primary outflow in the plane of the sky. We also identify two compact structures, Sources A and B, within an extended structure associated with Ser-emb 15 in the 1.3 mm continuum emission at a resolution of 40 au. The projected sizes of Sources A and B are 137 au and 60 au, respectively. Assuming a dust temperature of 20 K, we estimate the dust mass to be 0.0024 Msun for Source A and 0.00033 Msun for Source B. C18O line data imply the existence of rotational motion around the extended structure, however, cannot resolve rotational motion in Source A and/or B, due to insufficient angular and frequency resolutions. Therefore, we cannot conclude whether Ser-emb 15 is a single or binary system. Thus, either Source A or B could drive the secondary outflow. We discuss two scenarios to explain the driving mechanism of the primary and secondary outflows: the Ser-emb 15 system is (1) a binary system composed of Source A and B or (2) a single star system composed of only Source A. In either case, the system could be a suitable target for investigating the disk and/or binary formation processes in complicated environments. Detecting these outflows should contribute to understanding complex star-forming environments, which may be common in the star-formation processes.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2023

An ALMA Glimpse of Dense Molecular Filaments Associated with High-mass Protostellar Systems in the Large Magellanic Cloud

Recent millimeter/sub-millimeter facilities have revealed the physical properties of filamentary molecular clouds in relation to high-mass star formation. A uniform survey of the nearest, face-on star-forming galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), complements the Galactic knowledge. We present ALMA survey data with a spatial resolution of $\sim$0.1 pc in the 0.87 mm continuum and HCO$^{+}$(4-3) emission toward 30 protostellar objects with luminosities of 10$^4$-10$^{5.5}$ $L_{\odot}$ in the LMC. The spatial distributions of the HCO$^{+}$(4-3) line and thermal dust emission are well correlated, indicating that the line effectively traces dense, filamentary gas with an H$_2$ volume density of $\gtrsim$10$^5$ cm$^{-3}$ and a line mass of $\sim$10$^3$-10$^{4}$ $M_{\odot}$ pc$^{-1}$. Furthermore, we obtain an increase in the velocity linewidths of filamentary clouds, which follows a power-law dependence on their H$_2$ column densities with an exponent of $\sim$0.5. This trend is consistent with observations toward filamentary clouds in nearby star-forming regions withiin $ \lesssim$1 kpc from us and suggests enhanced internal turbulence within the filaments owing to surrounding gas accretion. Among the 30 sources, we find that 14 are associated with hub-filamentary structures, and these complex structures predominantly appear in protostellar luminosities exceeding $\sim$5 $\times$10$^4$ $L_{\odot}$. The hub-filament systems tend to appear in the latest stages of their natal cloud evolution, often linked to prominent H$\;${\sc ii} regions and numerous stellar clusters. Our preliminary statistics suggest that the massive filaments accompanied by hub-type complex features may be a necessary intermediate product in forming extremely luminous high-mass stellar systems capable of ultimately dispersing the parent cloud.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2023

Co-evolution of dust grains and protoplanetary disks

We propose a new evolutionary process of protoplanetary disks "co-evolution of dust grains and protoplanetary disks", revealed by dust-gas two-fluid non-ideal magnetohydrodynamics simulations considering the growth of dust and associated changes in magnetic resistivity. We found that the dust growth significantly affects disk evolution by changing the coupling between the gas and magnetic field. Moreover, once the dust grains sufficiently grow and the adsorption of charged particles on dust grains becomes negligible, the physical quantities (e.g., density and magnetic field) of the disk are well described by characteristic power laws. In this disk structure, the radial profile of density is steeper and the disk mass is smaller than those of the model ignoring dust growth. We analytically derive these power laws from the basic equations of non-ideal magnetohydrodynamics. The analytical power laws are determined only by observable physical quantities, e.g., central stellar mass and mass accretion rate, and do not include difficult-to-determine parameters e.g., viscous parameter $α$. Therefore, our model is observationally testable and this disk structure is expected to provide a new perspective for future studies on protostar and disk evolution.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2023

Magnetic Effects Promote Supermassive Star Formation in Metal-enriched Atomic-cooling Halos

Intermediate-mass black holes (with $\geq\!10^5\,M_\odot$) are promising candidates for the origin of supermassive black holes (with $\sim\!10^9\,M_\odot$) in the early universe (redshift $z\sim6$). Chon & Omukai (2020) firstly pointed out the direct collapse black hole (DCBH) formation in metal-enriched atomic-cooling halos (ACHs), which relaxes the DCBH formation criterion. On the other hand, Hirano et al. (2021) showed that the magnetic effects promote the DCBH formation in metal-free ACHs. We perform a set of magnetohydrodynamical simulations to investigate star formation in the magnetized ACHs with metallicities $Z/Z_\odot = 0$, $10^{-5}$, and $10^{-4}$. Our simulations show that the mass accretion rate onto the protostars becomes lower in metal-enriched ACHs than that of metal-free ACHs. However, many protostars form from gravitationally and thermally unstable metal-enriched gas clouds. Under such circumstances, the magnetic field rapidly increases as the magnetic field lines wind up due to the spin of protostars. The region with the amplified magnetic field expands outwards due to the orbital motion of protostars and the rotation of the accreting gas. The amplified magnetic field extracts the angular momentum from the accreting gas, promotes the coalescence of the low-mass protostars, and increases the mass growth rate of the primary protostar. We conclude that the magnetic field amplification is always realized in the metal-enriched ACHs regardless of the initial magnetic field strength, which affects the DCBH formation criterion. In addition, we find a qualitatively different trend from the previous unmagnetized simulations in that the mass growth rate is maximal for the extremely metal-poor ACHs with $Z/Z_\odot = 10^{-5}$.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2023

Impact of turbulence intensity and fragmentation velocity on dust particle size evolution and non-ideal magnetohydrodynamics effects

We investigate the influence of dust particle size evolution on non-ideal magnetohydrodynamic effects during the collapsing phase of star-forming cores, taking both the turbulence intensity in the collapsing cloud core and the fragmentation velocity of dust particles as parameters. When the turbulence intensity is small, the dust particles do not grow significantly, and the non-ideal MHD effects work efficiently in high-density regions. The dust particles rapidly grow in a strongly turbulent environment, while the efficiency of non-ideal MHD effects in such an environment depends on the fragmentation velocity of the dust particles. When the fragmentation velocity is small, turbulence promotes coagulation growth and collisional fragmentation of dust particles, producing small dust particles. In this case, the adsorption of charged particles on the dust particle surfaces becomes efficient and the abundance of charged particles decreases, making non-ideal MHD effects effective at high densities. On the other hand, when the fragmentation velocity is high, dust particles are less likely to fragment, even if the turbulence is strong. In this case, the production of small dust particles become inefficient and non-ideal MHD effects become less effective. We also investigate the effect of the dust composition on the star and disk formation processes. We constrain the turbulence intensity of a collapsing core and the fragmentation velocity of dust for circumstellar disk formation due to the dissipation of the magnetic field.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2023

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.

astro-ph.GA↗