The transverse velocity and excitation structure of the HH 110 jet ^*

¹ Departament de Física i Enginyeria Nuclear, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Av. Víctor Balaguer s/n, 08800 Vilanova i la Geltrú, Spain
² Departament d'Astronomia i Meteorologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Av. Diagonal 647, 08028 Barcelona, Spain e-mail: robert,rosario@am.ub.es
³ Instituto de Ciencias Nucleares, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Apartado Postal 70-543, 04510 México D.F., México e-mail: raga@astroscu.unam.mx
⁴ Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, CSIC, Camino Bajo de Huétor 24, 18008 Granada, Spain e-mail: guillem@iaa.es

Corresponding author: A. Riera, angels.riera@upc.es

Received: 23 October 2002
Accepted: 16 December 2002

Abstract

We present long-slit spectroscopic observations of the HH 110 jet obtained with the 4.2 m William Herschel Telescope. We have obtained for the first time, spectra for slit positions along and across the jet axis (at the position of knots B, C, I, J and P) to search for the observational signatures of entrainment and turbulence by studying the kinematics and the excitation structure. We find that the HH 110 flow accelerates from a velocity of 35 km s^-1 in knot A up to 110 km s^-1 in knot P. We find some systematic trends for the variation of the emission line ratios along the jet. No clear trends for the variation of the radial velocity are seen across the width of the jet beam. The cross sections of the jet show complex radial velocity and line emission structures which differ quite strongly from each other.