Multiple Shells Driven by Disk Winds: ALMA Observations in the HH 30 Outflow

Abstract

We present archival Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array band 6 observations of the ^13 CO ( J = 2–1) and ^12 CO ( J = 2–1) molecular line emission of the protostellar system associated with HH 30. The ^13 CO molecular line shows the accretion disk while the molecular outflow is traced by the emission of the ^12 CO molecular line. We estimated a dynamical mass for the central object of 0.45 ± 0.14 M _⊙ , and a mass for the molecular outflow of (1.83 ± 0.19) × 10 ^−4 M _⊙ . The molecular outflow presents an internal cavity as well as multiple outflowing shell structures. We distinguish three different shells with constant expansion (∼4–6 km s ^−1 ) and possible rotation signatures (≤0.5 km s ^−1 ). We find that the shells can be explained by magnetocentrifugal disk winds with launching radii R _launch ≲ 4 au and a small magnetic lever arm λ ∼ 1.6–1.9. The multiple shell structure may be the result of episodic ejections of the material from the accretion disk associated with three different epochs with dynamical ages of 497 ± 15 yr, 310 ± 9 yr, and 262 ± 11 yr for the first, second, and third shells, respectively. The outermost shell was ejected 187 ± 17 yr before the middle shell, while the middle shell was launched 48 ± 14 yr before the innermost shell. Our estimations of the linear and angular momentum rates of the outflow as well as the accretion luminosity are consistent with the values expected if the outflow of HH 30 is produced by a wide-angle disk wind.

Keywords

• Accretion
• Herbig-Haro objects
• Star formation
• Stellar winds
• Young stellar objects