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Title: The Shock Dynamics of Heterogeneous YSO Jets:3D Simulations Meet Multi-epoch Observations

Journal Article · · The Astrophysical Journal (Online)
ORCiD logo [1];  [1]; ORCiD logo [2];  [3]
  1. Univ. of Rochester, NY (United States)
  2. Rice Univ., Houston, TX (United States)
  3. Imperial College, London (United Kingdom)
+ Show Author Affiliations

High-resolution observations of young stellar object (YSO) jets show them to be composed of many small-scale knots or clumps. In this paper, we report results of 3D numerical simulations designed to study how such clumps interact and create morphologies and kinematic patterns seen in emission line observations. Our simulations focus on clump scale dynamics by imposing velocity differences between spherical, over-dense regions, which then lead to the formation of bow shocks as faster clumps overtake slower material. We show that much of the spatial structure apparent in emission line images of jets arises from the dynamics and interactions of these bow shocks. Our simulations show a variety of time-dependent features, including bright knots associated with Mach stems where the shocks intersect, a “frothy” emission structure that arises from the presence of the Nonlinear Thin Shell Instability along the surfaces of the bow shocks, and the merging and fragmentation of clumps. Our simulations use a new non-equilibrium cooling method to produce synthetic emission maps in Hα and [S II]. These are directly compared to multi-epoch Hubble Space Telescope observations of Herbig–Haro jets. We find excellent agreement between features seen in the simulations and the observations in terms of both proper motion and morphologies. Furthermore we conclude that YSO jets may be dominated by heterogeneous structures and that interactions between these structures and the shocks they produce can account for many details of YSO jet evolution.

Research Organization:
Rice Univ., Houston, TX (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); National Science Foundation (NSF); Space Telescope Science Institute
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0001063; NA0002037; OCI-1053575; HST-AR-11251.01-A; HST-AR-12128.01-A
OSTI ID:
1462315
Report Number(s):
DOE-Rice-2037-2
Journal Information:
The Astrophysical Journal (Online), Vol. 837, Issue 2; ISSN 1538-4357
Publisher:
Institute of Physics (IOP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 13 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (5)

Simulating radiative magnetohydrodynamical flows with astrobear : implementation and applications of non-equilibrium cooling journal September 2018
Exploring astrophysics-relevant magnetohydrodynamics with pulsed-power laboratory facilities journal April 2019
The Role of Magnetic Fields in Protostellar Outflows and Star Formation journal July 2019
The Time Evolution of the HH 1 Jet Modeled as a Variable Outflow journal October 2018
The Role of Magnetic Fields in Protostellar Outflows and Star Formation text January 2019

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Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
Herbig
Haro objects
hydrodynamics
instabilities
ISM: jets and outflows
shock waves
stars: jets