Collective outflow from a small multiple stellar system
- Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Zürich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zürich (Switzerland)
- Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, P.O. Box 9513, 2300 RA Leiden (Netherlands)
- Department of Astrophysics, American Museum of Natural History, 79th Street at Central Park West, New York, NY 10024-5192 (United States)
- Zentrum für Astronomie der Universität Heidelberg, Institut für Theoretische Astrophysik, Albert-Ueberle-Strasse 2, D-69120 Heidelberg (Germany)
- Monash Centre for Astrophysics, School of Mathematical Sciences, Monash University, Vic 3800 (Australia)
The formation of high-mass stars is usually accompanied by powerful protostellar outflows. Such high-mass outflows are not simply scaled-up versions of their lower-mass counterparts, since observations suggest that the collimation degree degrades with stellar mass. Theoretically, the origins of massive outflows remain open to question because radiative feedback and fragmentation of the accretion flow around the most massive stars, with M > 15 M {sub ☉}, may impede the driving of magnetic disk winds. We here present a three-dimensional simulation of the early stages of core fragmentation and massive star formation that includes a subgrid-scale model for protostellar outflows. We find that stars that form in a common accretion flow tend to have aligned outflow axes, so that the individual jets of multiple stars can combine to form a collective outflow. We compare our simulation to observations with synthetic H{sub 2} and CO observations and find that the morphology and kinematics of such a collective outflow resembles some observed massive outflows, such as Cepheus A and DR 21. We finally compare physical quantities derived from simulated observations of our models to the actual values in the models to examine the reliability of standard methods for deriving physical quantities, demonstrating that those methods indeed recover the actual values to within a factor of two to three.
- OSTI ID:
- 22356713
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 788, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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