The CO Outflow Components Ejected by a Recent Accretion Event in B335

Abstract

Protostellar outflows often present a knotty appearance, providing evidence of sporadic accretion in stellar mass growth. To understand the direct relation between mass accretion and ejection, we analyze the contemporaneous accretion activity and associated ejection components in B335. B335 has brightened in the mid-IR by 2.5 mag since 2010, indicating increased luminosity, presumably due to an increased mass accretion rate onto the protostar. Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations of ^12 CO emission in the outflow reveal high-velocity emission, estimated to have been ejected 4.6–2 yr before the ALMA observations and consistent with the jump in mid-IR brightness. The consistency in timing suggests that the detected high-velocity ejection components are directly linked to the most recent accretion activity. We calculated the kinetic energy, momentum, and force for the ejection component associated with the most recent accretion activity and found that, at least, about 1.0% of the accreted mass has been ejected. More accurate information on the jet inclination and the temperature of the ejected gas components will better constrain the ejected mass induced by the recently enhanced accretion event.

Keywords

• Young stellar objects
• Protostars
• Stellar jets
• Stellar accretion