EPoS Contribution

Numerical simulations of molecular outflows - from RAM to reality and back

Turlough Downes
Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland

In this talk we address two questions: how reliable are the properties of molecular outflows when derived from observations and how good are the numerical simulations of jet-driven outflows at predicting observable properties? When dealing with the first question we restrict ourselves to the example of the calculation of the lifetime of a molecular outflow - something which is crucial in order to estimate the amount of momentum the driving jet must carry - an important parameter in jet formation models. Using numerical simulations we find a very large discrepancy between the results from methods usually used by observers and the actual age of the outflow. In looking at the second question we briefly compare the results of our simulations with those of other groups in order to determine which outflow properties predicted from simulations are robust (i.e. common to all simulations) and which are more tentative. This type of analysis helps to direct further research into numerical methods for these simulations and to inform the community of which results of simulations can be trusted.