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| EPoS Contribution |
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High angular resolution observations of water toward low-mass protostars
Jes K. Jorgensen Centre for Star and Planet Formation, | |||||||
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Water emission toward NGC1333-IRAS4B imaged with the IRAM Plateau de
Bure Interferometer. The background image shows the distribution of
cold dust in the large scale envelope (red colors) and circumstellar
disks (blue colors) from single-dish and inteferometric submillimeter
continuum observations. The bright spot toward one of these, is the
water emission detected with IRAM. The top inserted figure shows the
spectrum toward this protostellar disk - with the water line indicated
in yellow and the light blue lines coming from complex organic
molecules in the same region (the light red is SO_2). The lower
inserted figure shows the water image with the colors corresponding to
the velocities of the gas.
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| Abstract: Deeply embedded protostars provide an important laboratory for studying the chemistry of star formation - providing the link between dense regions in molecular clouds from which stars are formed, i.e., the initial conditions and the end product in terms of, e.g., disk and planet formation. High angular resolution observations at (sub)millimeter wavelengths provide an important tool for studying the chemical composition of such low-mass protostars - including spatial molecular abundance variations - and to identify which species are useful tracers of different components of the protostars, such as their disks. Of all molecules, water is one of the most important in star-forming regions: it is a dominant form of oxygen, is important in the energy balance, and is ultimately associated with the formation of planets and emergence of life. Observations of water are naturally restricted by Earth's atmosphere and therefore mostly limited to space-borne observatories with low spectral and/or spatial resolution, however. We here present the first spatially and spectrally resolved observation of thermal emission of (an isotopologue of) water with the IRAM Plateau de Bure Interferometer toward a deeply embedded Class 0 protostar, NGC1333-IRAS4B. The observations resolve the emission of water toward this source with an extent of about 0.2" corresponding to the inner 25 AU (radius) of the protostar. The data suggest that the water emission has its origin in a disk seen at a low inclination angle. In this contribution I will discuss these results - and compare them to newly obtained high angular observations of water and complex organic molecules in this and other deeply embedded protostars. Collaborators: |
T. J. Harries, Exeter, UK D. A. Rundle, Exeter, UK
Key publication
| Suggested Session: Early Phases of Disks | |||