Discovery of a Collimated Jet from the Low-luminosity Protostar IRAS 16253‑2429 in a Quiescent Accretion Phase with the JWST
Date Issued
2024
Author(s)
Narang, Mayank
•
Manoj, P.
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Tyagi, Himanshu
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Watson, Dan M.
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Megeath, S. Thomas
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Federman, Samuel
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Rubinstein, Adam E.
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Gutermuth, Robert
•
•
Beuther, Henrik
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Bourke, Tyler L.
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Van Dishoeck, Ewine F.
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Evans, Neal J.
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Anglada, Guillem
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Osorio, Mayra
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Stanke, Thomas
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Muzerolle, James
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Looney, Leslie W.
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Yang, Yao-Lun
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Klaassen, Pamela
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Karnath, Nicole
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Atnagulov, Prabhani
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Brunken, Nashanty
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Fischer, William J.
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Furlan, Elise
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Green, Joel
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Habel, Nolan
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Hartmann, Lee
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Linz, Hendrik
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Nazari, Pooneh
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Pokhrel, Riwaj
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Rahatgaonkar, Rohan
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Rocha, Will R. M.
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Sheehan, Patrick
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Slavicinska, Katerina
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Stutz, Amelia M.
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Tobin, John J.
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Tychoniec, Lukasz
•
Wolk, Scott
Abstract
Investigating Protostellar Accretion (IPA) is a JWST Cycle 1 GO program that uses NIRSpec integral field units and MIRI Medium Resolution Spectrograph to obtain 2.9–28 μm spectral cubes of young, deeply embedded protostars with luminosities of 0.2–10,000 L ⊙ and central masses of 0.15–12 M ⊙. In this Letter, we report the discovery of a highly collimated atomic jet from the Class 0 protostar IRAS 16253‑2429, the lowest-luminosity source (L bol = 0.2 L ⊙) in the IPA program. The collimated jet is detected in multiple [Fe II] lines and [Ne II], [Ni II], and H I lines but not in molecular emission. The atomic jet has a velocity of about 169 ± 15 km s‑1, after correcting for inclination. The width of the jet increases with distance from the central protostar from 23 to 60 au, corresponding to an opening angle of 2.°6 ± 0.°5. By comparing the measured flux ratios of various fine-structure lines to those predicted by simple shock models, we derive a shock speed of 54 km s‑1 and a preshock density of 2.0 × 103 cm‑3 at the base of the jet. From these quantities and using a suite of jet models and extinction laws, we compute a mass-loss rate between 0.4 and 1.1 ×10‑10 M ⊙ yr ‑1. The low mass-loss rate is consistent with simultaneous measurements of low mass accretion rate (2.4 ± 0.8 × 10‑9 M ⊙ yr‑1) for IRAS 16253‑2429 from JWST observations, indicating that the protostar is in a quiescent accretion phase. Our results demonstrate that very low-mass protostars can drive highly collimated, atomic jets, even during the quiescent phase.
Volume
962
Issue
1
Start page
L16
Issn Identifier
2041-8205
Ads BibCode
2024ApJ...962L..16N
Rights
open.access
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