A&A 415, 1021-1037 (2004)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20034216
J. K. Jørgensen1 - M. R. Hogerheijde1,2 - G. A. Blake3 - E. F. van Dishoeck1 - L. G. Mundy4 - F. L. Schöier1,5
1 - Leiden Observatory, PO Box 9513, 2300 RA Leiden, The
Netherlands
2 - Steward Observatory, The University of Arizona, 933
N. Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85721-0065, USA
3 - Division of
Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology,
MS 150-21, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
4 - Department of Astronomy,
University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
5 - Stockholm
Observatory, AlbaNova, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
Received 21 August 2003 / Accepted 3 November 2003
Abstract
This paper presents a detailed study of the chemistry in the outflow associated with the low-mass protostar NGC 1333-IRAS 2A down to 3
(650 AU) scales. Millimeter-wavelength aperture-synthesis observations from the Owens Valley and Berkeley-Illinois-Maryland-Association interferometers and (sub)millimeter single-dish observations from the Onsala Space Observatory 20 m telescope and Caltech Submillimeter Observatory are presented. The interaction of the highly collimated protostellar outflow with a molecular condensation
15 000 AU from the central
protostar is clearly traced by molecular species such as HCN, SiO, SO, CS, and CH3OH. Especially SiO traces a narrow high velocity component at the interface between the outflow and the molecular
condensation. Multi-transition single-dish observations are used to distinguish the chemistry of the shock from that of the molecular condensation and to address the physical conditions therein. Statistical equilibrium calculations reveal temperatures of 20 and 70 K for the quiescent and shocked components, respectively, and densities near 106
.
The line-profiles of low- and high-excitation lines are remarkably similar, indicating that the physical properties are quite homogeneous within each component. Significant abundance enhancements of two to four orders of
magnitude are found in the shocked region for molecules such as CH3OH, SiO and the sulfur-bearing molecules. HCO+ is seen only in the aftermath of the shock consistent with models where it is
destroyed through release of H2O from grain mantles in the shock. N2H+ shows narrow lines, not affected by the outflow but rather probing the ambient cloud. The overall molecular inventory is
compared to other outflow regions and protostellar environments. Differences in abundances of HCN, H2CO and CS are seen between different outflow regions and are suggested to be related to differences in the atomic carbon abundance. Compared to the warm inner parts of protostellar envelopes, higher abundances of in particular CH3OH and SiO are found in the outflows, which may be related to density differences between the regions.
Key words: ISM: individual objects: NGC 1333-IRAS 2 - stars: formation - ISM: jets and outflows - ISM: abundances
Studies of molecular abundances in regions of high outflow activity provide insight into the dependence of the chemical reaction networks on temperature and density. Furthermore it is important to recognize the effect of outflow-triggered chemistry in the inner protostellar envelope, to disentangle it from emission from a circumstellar disk or to address the effect of passive heating by the central protostar. In the central part of the protostellar envelope, thermal evaporation of dust grain mantles can lead to a distinct chemistry as is seen in the case of low-mass protostars (e.g IRAS 16293-2422, Cazaux et al. 2003; Schöier et al. 2002; Ceccarelli et al. 2000b,a).
NGC 1333-IRAS 2 (also known as IRAS 03258+3104; hereafter simply IRAS 2) is located in the NGC 1333 molecular cloud, harboring several class 0 and I objects, first
identified through IRAS maps by Jennings et al. (1987). Continuum observations reveal that IRAS 2 is a binary source with two components, IRAS 2A and 2B, separated by 6500 AU (30
)
(Looney et al. 2000; Sandell et al. 1994; Blake 1996). IRAS 2A is responsible for a highly collimated east-west outflow giving rise to a strong shock
15 000 AU from the central continuum source (Fig. 1). A strong CO outflow in the north-south
direction has also been observed (Liseau et al. 1988; Engargiola & Plambeck 1999), which
originates within a few arcseconds from IRAS 2A (Jørgensen et al. 2004a).
In the text
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Figure 1:
Overview of the IRAS 2A outflow region. The grey-scale image shows the SCUBA 850 ![]() |
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Langer et al. (1996) mapped the entire NGC 1333 region in CS and identified two peaks in CS emission toward the IRAS 2 outflow. They suggested that these are associated with red-shifted (eastern) and blue-shifted (western) bow shock components of the outflow. Sandell et al. (1994) reported bright CH3OH emission toward the red-shifted (eastern) outflow lobe and correspondingly a high CH3OH abundance, possibly enhanced by the shock. The more detailed structure of the CH3OH emission from the IRAS 2A east-west outflow was discussed by Bachiller et al. (1998), who mapped the outflow positions at 3
using the IRAM interferometer and 30 m single-dish telescope. Bachiller et al. derived the physical conditions in the shock interaction zone from LVG calculations and obtained a density of
106 cm-3 and temperature of
100 K.
Table 1: Overview of the observations of the IRAS 2A outflow position treated in this paper.
Bachiller et al. also found that the observed methanol emission translates
to a large enhancement of CH3OH by a factor 300 in the IRAS 2A outflow.
CH3OH is thought to be released directly from the dust grain mantles and is
often seen to be associated with protostellar outflows (e.g., Bachiller et al. 1995).
Other often-used tracers of shocks associated with protostellar outflows are Si-bearing
species, in particular SiO (e.g., Garay et al. 2002; Martin-Pintado et al. 1992; Codella et al. 1999). High
abundances of these species may mark a clear distinction of shocked gas from unprocessed
gas in the envelopes around low-mass protostars
(Bachiller et al. 2001; Bachiller & Pérez Gutiérrez 1997; Garay et al. 1998).
In this paper we present a study of the detailed chemistry of the shock associated with the IRAS 2A outflow based on observations of a wide range of molecular lines at 3-6
resolution from the Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO) and Berkeley
Maryland Illinois Association (BIMA) millimeter interferometers,
together with millimeter and submillimeter single dish observations
from the Onsala 20 m telescope (OSO) and the Caltech Submillimeter
Observatory 10.4 m telescope (CSO). Parts of the OVRO observations
have previously been presented by
Blake (1996). Section 2 describes the observations
and reductions. The maps from the interferometry observations are
presented and discussed in Sect. 3.1, while the
single dish observations are treated in Sect. 3.2. The
physical and chemical properties of the shock region are analyzed
using statistical equilibrium calculations as described in
Sect. 4 and molecular abundances are
derived. Section 5 discusses the inferred chemistry and
compares it to other well-studied outflow regions, to other types of
star-forming environments and to available models for the chemistry in
outflow regions. The main findings are summarized in
Sect. 6. A companion paper (Jørgensen et al. 2004a) presents
details of a millimeter-wavelength interferometer study of the
environment surrounding the central protostellar system.
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Figure 2:
Moment maps for the lines observed at OVRO: a) CS, b) SO, c)
SiO and d) CH3OH. The black/grey dotted lines indicate low
velocity emission integrated over velocities of 5-9 km s-1whereas the black solid lines indicate high velocity emission
integrated over 9-16 km s-1 for CH3OH and SO and
9-25 km s-1 for CS and SiO. The contours are given in steps of
3![]() |
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Figure 3:
Moment maps for the lines observed at BIMA: a) HCN, b)
HCO+, c) N2H+ and d) C34S. As in Fig. 2
the black/grey dotted and black solid lines indicate low and high
velocity material, respectively (the low velocity emission is
integrated over 5-9 km s-1 and the high velocity emission over
9-16 km s-1). The contours ascend in steps of 3![]() |
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The millimeter interferometer of the Berkeley-Illinois-Maryland
Association (BIMA) observed the IRAS 2A outflow
position between March 4 and April 15, 2003. The array B- and
C-configurations provided projected baselines of
2.7-71 k
.
The lines of HCO+ 1-0, HCN 1-0, N2H+1-0, and C34S 2-1 were recorded in 256-channel spectral bands
with a total width of 6.25 MHz (
20 km s-1). The complex
gain of the interferometer was calibrated by observing the bright
quasars 3C 84 (4.2 Jy) and 0237+288 (2.3 Jy) approximately every 20 min. The absolute flux scale was bootstrapped from observations of
Uranus. The rms noise levels are 0.2 Jy beam-1 in the 24 kHz
channels, with a synthesized beam size of
FWHM
(
for the C34S and N2H+ observations). The data
were calibrated with routines from the MIRIAD software package
(Sault et al. 1995).
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Figure 4:
Channel maps for a) HCN, b) HCO+, c) CS and d)
SiO. Contours are given in steps of 3![]() |
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Figure 5:
CS (upper) and SiO (lower) position-velocity maps for the
IRAS 2A shock. The coordinate frame has been rotated and translated to
an XY-coordinate system with the X-axis along the propagation
direction of the outflow (![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Figure 6:
Observed single dish spectra toward the IRAS 2A shock
position. In the upper two rows the 3 mm observations from the Onsala
20 m are presented, whereas the 0.8-1.4 mm observations from the CSO
are shown in the lower 3 rows. All spectra are on the
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In addition to the interferometry data, a number of molecular lines
were observed toward the position of the red-shifted shock using the
Caltech Submillimeter Observatory 10.4 m (CSO) and Onsala Space Observatory 20 m
(OSO)
telescopes. The pointing was
checked regularly and found to be accurate
to a few arcseconds. The
typical beam sizes are 45
-33
for the OSO 20 m
(86-115 GHz) and 26
-20
for the CSO (217-356 GHz)
observations. The data were calibrated using the standard chopper
wheel method. The spectra were reduced in a standard way by
subtracting baselines and by dividing by the main-beam efficiencies
as given on the web pages for the two
telescopes.
ranges from 0.6 to 0.43 for frequencies of
86 to 115 GHz for the OSO 20 m and 0.67 to 0.62 for frequencies of 217
to 356 GHz for the CSO. An overview of all the observed lines
(single-dish and interferometer) is given in Table 1.
Most of the observed lines show indications of material affected by
the outflow with clear line wings spreading out to 10-15 km s-1 from
the systemic velocity of 7 km s-1. One exception is N2H+ which shows
narrow hyperfine components of approximately 1 km s-1 width (FWHM). Of
the observed lines, SiO, CS and HCN show emission stretching furthest
from the systemic velocity (out to 20 km s-1) while the
remaining species show somewhat narrower profiles (wings stretching
out to
10 km s-1 relative to the systemic velocity), with
HCO+ showing most material closest to the cloud systemic
velocity. SiO is not seen at low velocities as is also the case for
CH3OH and SO.
In general the molecules observed at BIMA most clearly trace the extended low velocity material. This may in part be due to the different (u,v) coverage of the two arrays, with the BIMA observations recovering more of the extended emission, but the species observed at OVRO may also be those that are predominantly enhanced by the outflow generated shock.
The N2H+ emission traces a ridge of material with a number of
"cores'' stretching from the north-east of the map toward the center
and back again to the north-west. A dominant core is seen close to the
center (offsets of (67
,
-3
)) which is also picked up by
the HCO+ maps. South of this core a "<''-shaped extension is seen
in both HCO+ and N2H+. The low velocity CS emission picks up only
this feature. A similar component was also seen in the CH3OH
emission mapped by Bachiller et al. (1998) but is not evident in the
CH3OH observations presented here, possibly due to lower
sensitivity.
The high-velocity material is generally much less extended than the
low-velocity material. The HCN, SiO and CS trace a narrow component
stretching 30-40
along the outflow propagation and
5-10
in the direction perpendicular to this. The narrow
component points directly to the "<''-shaped feature in the low
velocity emission material. The HCN emission is slightly more extended
than that of the two other species, again likely due to the different
(u,v) coverage of the observations from the two arrays. SO and
CH3OH show a slightly weaker structure along the same narrow
component.
The emission of CH3OH and SO is located downstream (west) of the
outflow propagation direction compared to, e.g., the peak of SiO. Even
farther downstream around offset (59
,
-13
), HCN, CS and
SiO show another strong feature where the N2H+ emission "pinches''
the outflow. The HCO+ wing emission is seen only at this position
and is found to be more extended, filling out the region void of
N2H+. In fact the HCO+ emission can be traced all the way back to
the central protostar as is also the case for CO
(Fig. 1). It is striking how the HCO+ and, e.g.,
HCN wing emission trace significantly different components, implying a
clear chemical differentiation.
Position-velocity diagrams for CS and SiO are presented in Fig. 5. Note the symmetry around the X-axis in these diagrams with low-velocity emission constituting a broad component of weak emission. For both species, the high velocity component is more pronounced toward the working surface of the outflow.
In Fig. 7 spectra for individual molecules are
compared. The two component separation into a core and wing profile
seems to be unique for each molecule: the widths of the core part of
the lines (where observable in more than one transition) and the
dependence of line strength with velocity in the wings, in particular
the terminal velocities inferred for each molecule, are both
independent of the observed transition. This gives a clear indication
that two distinct components with different excitation conditions and
chemical properties are observed and that the different molecules
probe distinct parts of each of these components, within which the
excitation properties do not vary significantly.
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Figure 7: Comparison between profiles for different transitions of specific molecules. Note that the spectra have been smoothed by up to a factor of 10 to bring out the agreement between the lines, except for the scale factor given in the upper right corner of each plot. In all plots the 3 mm (low excitation) lines are indicated by the grey lines, whereas the black line indicates the higher excitation transitions. For SiO the 8-7 transition has furthermore been offset by -0.5 K. |
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As for the interferometry data, the terminal velocities seem to
indicate different dynamical components of the outflow region. SiO and
CO probe material at the highest velocities relative to the cloud rest
velocity of 20-25 km s-1, whereas HCO+ has the lowest degree of wing
emission extending 10 km s-1 from the rest velocity. The
remaining molecules fall somewhere in between. A similar trend was
seen in the L1157 outflow by Bachiller et al. (2001), who also
found CO and SiO to have significantly higher terminal velocities than
HCO+, H2CO, SO and CS. They suggested that this could be related
to differences in the formation mechanisms for the various
species. Bachiller et al. also argued in favor of rather
homogeneous excitation conditions in the L1157 outflow, since
maps of various transitions for specific molecules were found to be
very similar. In this case the main differences among different
molecular species would be the result of the chemistry in the region.
That N2H+ is observed only in the quiescent cloud material is
explained if the temperature in the material affected by the outflow
increases to 20 K. At this temperature CO is released from
grain mantles and becomes the dominant destruction channel of N2H+,
lowering the abundance of this molecule. Comparison between the
morphology of the N2H+ emission and that of other species indicates
a clear interaction between the outflowing material and the ambient
cloud. Figures 2 and 3 show a cavity of
N2H+ emission where the shocked gas (e.g., SiO) appears. The two
peaks seen in SiO, HCN and CS also seem to be related to an increase
in N2H+ emission. A natural question is whether the outflow shapes
or is being shaped by the ambient material. Judging from the
morphology of the larger scale emission in Fig. 1,
it is striking to note the presence of large amounts of dust northeast
of the central IRAS 2A protostar. The two CO outflows
identified by different authors
(e.g., Liseau et al. 1988; Engargiola & Plambeck 1999; Knee & Sandell 2000) trace the edges of this
dust condensation. The two perpendicular outflows seen toward IRAS 2
may therefore reflect the conditions in the ambient cloud material
rather than the intrinsic properties of the central protostellar
system: the CO outflow could simply be deflected around the dense
material traced by the N2H+ and continuum emission leading to the
quadrupolar morphology. In either case, however, this does not change
the interpretation of the shocked material in this paper. High
velocity gas (
20 km s-1 relative to the systemic velocity) is
present toward the eastern lobe as it is seen from most of the species
observed in this paper and this indicates the presence of the shock.
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Figure 8: The HCN 1-0 spectrum toward the shock position (grey) overplotted with a composite of three versions of the HCO+ spectrum toward the same position (black) - each shifted with the measured shifts between the HCN hyperfine lines and scaled according (relatively) to the 1:3:5 line-ratio expected for optically thin emission from material in LTE. |
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Figure 9: Comparison between the single-dish observations (grey) and corresponding spectra from the interferometer observations restored with the single-dish beam (black) at the shock position. The spectra from the interferometry observations have been scaled to resemble the wing of the single-dish spectra with the factors indicated in the upper right corner. For C34S the single-dish CS has been downscaled by a factor 22. |
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The hyperfine splitting of the HCN 1-0 line gives rise to three components within the same setting. The two weaker transitions are offset -5 and 7 km s-1 relative to the main hyperfine line. Overlap in the line wings therefore makes the interpretation of this line difficult. If the emitting material is in local thermodynamical equilibrium (LTE) and the emission is optically thin, one should expect the hyperfine components to be in a ratio of 1:3:5. In Fig. 8 a comparison between the HCO+ and HCN spectra toward the shock position is shown. The HCN spectrum has been overplotted with a composite of three versions of the HCO+ spectrum shifted according to the frequency shifts of the hyperfine lines and scaled in the relative 1:3:5 proportions - leaving an overall "normalization factor'' between the HCN and HCO+ line intensities as the only free parameter. The good agreement is remarkable and indicates that HCO+ and HCN trace the same material, especially at the lower velocities. The intensity of the main hyperfine component of the HCN 1-0 line is thereby found to be 0.5 times the intensity of the HCO+ 1-0 line. It should still be re-emphasized, that the interferometer maps show clear differences for the less extended HCN and HCO+ emission at higher velocities.
One question to address is whether the single-dish and interferometry observations trace the same material. The similar trends seen in the data from the two types of observations seem to support this, but it is also known that the interferometry observations lack sensitivity to extended structures on larger scales.
Table 2: Line parameters from single dish observations.
Figure 9 presents comparisons between the single-dish observations and spectra taken from interferometry data sets, restored with beam sizes appropriate for the Onsala 20 m telescope. The interferometry spectra have been scaled to match the wings of the single-dish spectra. Only a small correction of the order of 30% needs to be applied to match the CS and SiO spectra, which is close to the calibration uncertainty. This confirms that the higher velocity emission is relatively compact (as the maps also suggest for the emission in the transverse direction of the outflow), making it less subject to the incomplete (u,v) sampling of the interferometer observations.
Closer to the systemic velocity of the cloud (7 km s-1) the
discrepancy between the single-dish and interferometry spectra
increases. The CS interferometry observations pick up only a small
fraction of the emission in the "core'' part of the single-dish
line. The dip seen in the single-dish CS spectra at the rest velocity
of the cloud is a result of self-absorption, while for the
interferometry observations it is caused by the interferometer
resolving out extended emission close to the cloud systemic
velocity. The (u,v) sampling is also responsible for the lack of
emission in the SiO interferometry spectra at velocities close to the
rest velocity, although it is less significant for this molecule.
For the BIMA observations of HCN and HCO+, emission close to the systemic velocity is still mostly resolved out as indicated by the dips in the interferometer HCN and HCO+ spectra and as seen in the channel maps in Fig. 4. The slightly better (u,v)coverage from BIMA, however, makes these lines less subject to resolving out at velocities different from the systemic velocity.
Nyquist sampled single-dish maps of the different molecular
species would make it possible to combine the interferometer and
single-dish data to create maps including the short-spacings. This
would settle the issue of the differing (u,v) coverage of the two
arrays. In this paper we only have single pointing observations. The
agreement between the single-dish and interferometry spectra in the
line wings, however, justifies the discussion of the outflow
component based on the morphology in the interferometry maps presented
in Sect. 3.1. The agreement also makes it possible to
use the interferometer maps to determine the spatial extent of the
wing component, and thereby to estimate the beam filling factor for
the single-dish observations. The wing part of the SiO and CS
interferometry maps give a rough estimate of the extent of the outflow
emission in the transverse direction of 5-10
,
leading to
filling factors ranging from 0.07 to 0.32 for the single-dish beam
sizes. For the core component of the lines on the other hand, the
interferometer observations are less useful because of the significant
fraction of the low-velocity, extended emission that is resolved
out. For the following discussion, a filling factor of unity is
therefore assumed for the core component of the single-dish data,
which seems realistic as the interferometry maps do reveal emission
extended over scales larger than 20-30
.
For each molecule, line intensities were calculated for varying column density, density of the main collision partner (H2) and kinetic temperature. The filling factors estimated on the basis of the interferometry observations as discussed above were adopted and the calculated line intensities were compared to the observed ones. Since our main interest is in the relative behavior of the lines some of the uncertainties in the assumptions, e.g., the filling factor of unity for the core component, will cancel out, if the differences between the observed lines are not too large.
The comparison with the observations was performed by calculating the
-statistics for each set of parameters. The uncertainty in the
derived line intensities due to the calibration and the
disentanglement of the core and wing components was assumed to be
30%. The best fit models for the different species agree quite well
in the
plane, so all lines are combined
into a single
estimate to constrain the parameters. This is
illustrated in Fig. 10 where the constraints on
densities and temperatures have been plotted for given (optimal)
values of the column densities for the individual molecules. For the
core component an H2 density of
106 cm-3 and
temperature of 20 K is found to be consistent with the observations
with a reduced
of 1.8 for 8 fitted lines. Note that
the density and temperature are closely coupled, making individual
determinations somewhat ambiguous, as illustrated in the
plot, where it is seen that a lower temperature and correspondingly
higher density are equally probable. A lower density/higher
temperature can also not be completely ruled out. For the wing
component a best fit density of
cm-3 and
temperature of 70 K is found with
of 3.8 for 13
fitted lines. The temperature is slightly lower than the value quoted
by Bachiller et al. (1998), but still within the mutual uncertainties. The
derived column densities assuming these temperatures and densities are
given in Table 3.
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Figure 10:
Best fit densities and kinetic temperatures derived from
statistical equilibrium calculations with the assumptions described in
the text. In the upper panel the results for the core part of the
lines are shown and in the lower panel results for the wing part. The
grey-scaled contour indicate the 1![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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The kinetic temperatures and densities may vary between regions traced
by different molecular species. Both the velocity profiles of the
various molecules and the structure of their emission in the
interferometry maps show dissimilarities, indicating chemical
differentiation possibly due to a combination of the shock evolution
and variations in the physical conditions. On the other hand as
illustrated in Fig. 7, the conditions for lines of a
particular molecule are remarkably homogeneous over the entire shock
velocity range. It is also found that the derived parameters do not
vary much when specific molecules are included or not. The constraints
put on our derived temperature and density are in rough agreement with
measurements from other shocked regions from molecular outflows
(e.g., Garay et al. 1998; Bachiller & Pérez Gutiérrez 1997). As a first order approximation
the two component structure therefore seems to describe the excitation
conditions well. Moreover, the derived column densities are well
constrained with the assumed temperature and density in this regime,
as illustrated in Fig. 11.
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Figure 11:
Confidence plots for column density vs. kinetic temperature
(right) and density (left) for the CS observations of the core
component of the line profile (upper panels) and wing part (lower
panels). The contours correspond to the 1![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Table 3: Column densities for the various molecules from statistical equilibrium calculations.
Table 4 lists the abundances found for the two
components of the IRAS 2A outflow, calculated as simple ratios
between the column densities - taking the CO abundance relative to
H2 at constant value of
.
This means that the
quoted abundances for the "wing component'' are averaged over
material with a large range of velocities. As indicated by the maps
and the single-dish line profiles the emission from some of the
molecules may be more concentrated toward material with lower
velocities. In this sense, the quoted abundances are therefore lower
limits to the abundances in the regions where these molecules are
observed.
Table 4 also compares the derived abundances to those found for the L1157 and BHR71 outflows (Garay et al. 1998; Bachiller & Pérez Gutiérrez 1997), the molecular condensation ahead of the HH2 object (Girart et al. 2002) and other types of protostellar environments - in particular the IRAS 2A protostellar envelope (Jørgensen et al. 2004b), the "hot component'' of the IRAS 16293-2422 envelope (Schöier et al. 2002) and the the "C'' position of the dark cloud L134N (Dickens et al. 2000). The abundances in the IRAS 16293-2422 envelope were derived through detailed radiative transfer of the dust continuum and molecular line data. The CO, CS and HCN abundances quoted are averages over the entire envelope. Since the abundances in the outer part of the envelope may be lower due to freeze-out (see for example discussion for CO in Jørgensen et al. 2002), the quoted numbers are likely to be lower limits to the abundances in the inner, warm region of the envelope.
In Fig. 12 the abundances in the two components of the IRAS 2A outflow, in the IRAS 2A envelope and L1157 outflow are compared. In particular SiO, CH3OH, SO and CS are significantly enhanced by factors 10-104 in the outflow regions compared to the envelope and quiescent dark cloud. The abundances in the IRAS 2A wing component and L1157 agree very well for SO and SiO, but the abundances of HCN, H2CO and CS are lower in the IRAS 2A outflow by factors of 10-100. The CH3OH abundances are very large for both outflows - between 5 and 10% of that of CO. This is especially significant in comparison with abundances found in the Orion hot core and the low-mass protostar hot core in IRAS 16293-2422. There CH3OH is thought to be enhanced through thermal evaporation off dust grain ice mantles, but its abundance is a factor of 10-100 lower than in the outflow regions. Also the SiO abundances are different between the hot core sources and the outflow regions, whereas the SO abundances are practically identical. For CS and HCN, the abundances have to be significantly higher in the inner regions of IRAS 16293-2422 in order to match the outflow abundances. Compared to the dark cloud, L134N, the CH3OH abundances again stand out as significantly increased, together with CS and SO. HCN and H2CO have similar abundances in the outflow region and the dark cloud whereas HCO+ shows slightly lower abundances in the outflow regions.
Table 4: Abundances for the two components of the IRAS 2A outflow compared to other outflows and protostellar environments.
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Figure 12: Abundances in the IRAS 2A envelope (Jørgensen et al. 2004b) compared to the core and wing position components of the IRAS 2A outflow (this paper) and the L1157 outflow (Bachiller & Pérez Gutiérrez 1997). The abundances have been normalized to the abundances of L134N. For SiO, which has not been detected in L134N, a "reference'' abundance of 10-11 has been assumed. Note that N2H+ is not detected in the outflows, whereas SiO is not detected in the quiescent components. |
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The dynamical timescale calculated this way is subject to significant
systematic errors. The true extent of the outflow will be
,
while the terminal velocity of the outflow
relates to the observed maximum radial velocity as
,
modifying the dynamical timescale by a
factor
.
Furthermore the dynamical timescale at best reflects
the properties of the outflow at the present moment - changes in the
flow velocities throughout the history will similarly change the
outflow dynamical timescale. Thus, it is definitely not an unbiased
indicator of the age of the driving protostellar source. Still, it
agrees well with the timescales derived from comparison between the
envelope structure and collapse models (Jørgensen et al. 2004a) and
therefore does give an indication of the order of magnitude of the
appropriate timescale to be used when discussing the chemical
evolution of the shock in the following section.
The enhancement of SiO is thought to be caused by atomic silicon
sputtering from the surfaces of dust grains and quickly forming SiO in
the gas-phase through reactions with OH
(e.g., Caselli et al. 1997; Pineau des Forêts et al. 1997; Schilke et al. 1997). CH3OH, H2CO
and HCN, in contrast, are most likely enhanced through direct
evaporation of ice mantles. Alternative explanations, e.g., gas-phase
reactions between CH3+ and H2O forming CH3OH only produce
CH3OH abundances of
(e.g., Millar et al. 1991),
significantly lower than those found in the outflow regions of
10-6-10-5 (this
paper, Bachiller et al. 1998,1995; Bachiller & Pérez Gutiérrez 1997). The spectral
signatures of CH3OH compared to SiO indicate that it is formed at
lower velocities. Furthermore, it is seen that CH3OH peaks slightly
further downstream compared to, e.g., SiO in the interferometer
maps. This is clearly illustrated in Fig. 13
where the intensities of SiO, CH3OH and HCO+ are compared along
the outflow propagation axis. Garay et al. (2000) analyzed regions of
different shock velocities in the outflow associated with NGC 2071 and
found that CH3OH was most prominent in regions with low shock
velocities (
km s-1). Garay et al. suggested
that since molecules such as CH3OH, H2CO and HCN are more
volatile, they would only be capable of surviving at much lower shock
velocities than would, e.g., SiO. Applied to the IRAS 2A outflow
this explains both the differences in terminal velocities between SiO
on the one hand and HCN, H2CO and CH3OH on the other, but also
the different "onsets'' along the propagation direction between
CH3OH and SiO from the interferometer maps as seen in
Fig. 13.
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Figure 13:
Spatial differences between SiO, CH3OH and HCO+ along
the shock propagation from the interferometer maps. The emission from
each species has been integrated in strips perpendicular to an axis
aligned in the propagation direction of the outflow (position angle of
19![]() |
Open with DEXTER |
The characteristic core-wing structure of the observed lines is
similar to that seen in a SiO survey of protostellar outflows by
Codella et al. (1999), who argued that it could be an evolutionary effect
with the SiO being produced at high velocities and subsequently slowed
down toward lower velocities. They argued that it would take 104 years to slow down an outflow-induced shock, which is similar to
the time it would take SiO to be destroyed either through direct
accretion onto dust grains (Bergin et al. 1998) or through reactions with
OH, forming SiO2 (Pineau des Forêts et al. 1997). If this picture applies
to the IRAS 2A outflow, it is not surprising that SiO has low
abundances in the "core component'' - or ambient cloud. Since the SiO
destruction timescale is similar to the dissipation timescale for the
protostellar shock, SiO is almost completely destroyed in the
slow-down phase and will therefore not be seen in the
low-velocity/quiescent component. On the other hand, since SiO is
created as a direct result of the shock impact
(Pineau des Forêts et al. 1997; Schilke et al. 1997), it traces the highest velocities
in the outflow, together with CO. The characteristic molecular
depletion timescale at densities of 106 cm-3 typical of the
outflow region (Sect. 4.3) is on the order of 103 years,
comparable to the outflow dynamical timescale, and could therefore
explain why, e.g., SiO and CH3OH are not observed over the entire
extent of the outflow back to the central protostar.
The differences between the hot core/warm envelope and outflow abundances of, e.g., CH3OH and SiO could be caused by differing time scales related to the densities in the differing regions: the density in the hot inner part of protostellar envelopes is higher by 2-3 orders of magnitude than what is found in the outflow regions. This will lead to more rapid destruction of molecules with "anomalous'' abundances, e.g., SiO, either through accretion or reactions with other species and therefore also lower abundances in the envelope regions. Of course the mechanisms for producing the given molecules in the first place are also likely to be dependent on the environment, further complicating the picture.
The depletion timescale for CH3OH may also be taken as an important
clock related to the HCO+ abundance. As noted previously, HCO+stands out compared to the other molecules tracing material only in
the aftermath of the shock. In the L1157 outflow, HCO+ was
only found to be prominent in the part of the outflow close to the
driving source. Through chemical models, Bergin et al. (1998) found that
HCO+ should be destroyed after the passage of the shock through
reactions with H2O (
), but increases later
as the water abundance reaches lower levels due to freeze-out. This is
in fact seen in interferometer data as illustrated in
Fig. 13: the emission of HCO+ and CH3OH is
almost anticorrelated, with CH3OH being located closer to the
"head'' of the outflow and HCO+ showing up in the aftermath of the
shock. As higher abundances of both CH3OH and H2O are expected
to be results of grain mantle evaporation and the timescales for their
freeze-out are similar, the HCO+ and CH3OH enhancements should
indeed be anticorrelated as seen in Fig. 13.
N2H+, like HCO+, is expected to be destroyed by reactions with H2O. In contrast to HCO+, however, CO may also be important in destroying N2H+ (e.g., Bergin & Langer 1997; Charnley 1997). Observational studies of pre- and protostellar objects (e.g., Jørgensen et al. 2004a; Tafalla et al. 2002; Bergin et al. 2001) suggest that N2H+ is enhanced where CO is depleted. The narrowness of the N2H+ lines and the morphology of the emission in the IRAS 2A region indicate that this molecule is indeed only tracing the ambient cloud material where CO may be depleted and not the outflowing material where CO is returned to the gas-phase.
This work illustrates the large impact of protostellar outflows in shaping the physical and chemical properties of their parental environment. The combination of high-resolution interferometer observations and single-dish spectra makes it possible to address the physical and chemical conditions in the shocked and ambient gas and to investigate the spatial variation and time-scales characteristic for the shock induced chemistry. So far only a few shocks have been studied in great chemical detail. Similar systematic studies of a large number of different outflows will allow for a more detailed comparison between outflows and shocks of different velocities and energetics and in different environments. Future observations with facilities such as the SMA, CARMA, and ALMA will allow further studies of the variation of physical and chemical conditions in shocks through high resolution, high sensitivity multi-transition molecular line observations. Also high spatial resolution observations of H2O lines with Herschel-HIFI can confirm the anticorrelation between HCO+ and H2O. All such more detailed observational studies will serve as important starting points for more detailed physical and chemical models for shocks in protostellar environments.
Acknowledgements
We thank the referee for a prompt and well-considered report. The research of JKJ is funded by the Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA) through a network 2 Ph.D. stipend and research in astrochemistry in Leiden is supported by a Spinoza grant. GAB acknowledges support from the NASA Origins of Solar Systems program. FLS further acknowledges financial support from the Swedish Research Council.