Measuring the Physical Properties of Protostellar Outflows from Intermediate- Mass Stars in Feedback-Dominated Regions
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Measuring the Physical Properties of Protostellar Outflows from Intermediate- Mass Stars in Feedback-Dominated Regions Item Type text; Electronic Dissertation Authors Reiter, Megan Ruth Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 08/10/2021 14:38:01 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/560846 MEASURING THE PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF PROTOSTELLAR OUTFLOWS FROM INTERMEDIATE-MASS STARS IN FEEDBACK-DOMINATED REGIONS by Megan Ruth Reiter °BY: °= A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF ASTRONOMY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2015 2 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE As members of the Dissertation Committee, we certify that we have read the disser- tation prepared by Megan Ruth Reiter entitled Measuring the Physical Properties of Protostellar Outflows from Intermediate-Mass Stars in Feedback-Dominated Re- gions and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Date: 14 April 2015 Nathan Smith Date: 14 April 2015 Yancy Shirley Date: 14 April 2015 George Rieke Date: 14 April 2015 John Bieging Date: 14 April 2015 Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate’s submission of the final copies of the dissertation to the Graduate College. I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement. Date: 14 April 2015 Dissertation Director: Nathan Smith 3 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special per- mission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/us/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA. SIGNED: Megan Ruth Reiter 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To borrow the words of Pliny the Elder, “No man’s abilities are so remarkably shining as not to stand in need of a proper opportunity, a patron, and even the praises of a friend to recommend them to the notice of the world.” So, at the risk of forgetting one or more very important people, some thank-yous. Thanks for technical assistance to Rob Simcoe for assistance with FIRE data processing and Jayadev Rajagopal for assistance with the Gemini Observations. Pat Hartigan allowed us to consult his code to check against our proper motion measurement algorithm, and provided helpful conversations on measuring jet proper motions. Thanks also to Tim Axelrod, Adam Burgasser, Brant Robertson, Kaitlin Kratter, and Joan Najita for helpful discussions. Support for this work was provided by NASA grants AR-12155, GO-13390, and GO-13391 from the Space Telescope Science Institute. This work is based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, obtained from the Data Archive at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555. These observations are associated with programs GO/DD 12050 and GO 10241, 10475, 13390, and 13391. We acknowledge the observing team for the HH 901 mosaic image: Mutchler, M., Livio, M., Noll, K., Levay, Z., Frattare, L., Januszewski, W., Christian, C., Borders, T. Gemini observations are from the GS-2013A-Q-12 science program. Thank you to my advisor, Nathan Smith. In some sense, pursuing a PhD is a lot like training for a shot at the big leagues (or the world heavyweight championship, if you’d rather not mix sports). Given that you insisted that I could not be your student if I had not seen “Rocky,” I can only assume that the intention was always to be the Mickey to my Rocky Balboa. Though the section on future prospects says it in slightly different words, I promise to eat lightening and crap thunder in my postdoc at Michigan and beyond. Thanks to Yancy Shirley, who got me started in star formation and taught me that there are many ways to approach a problem. Thanks also to George Rieke, Lori Allen, John Bieging, and Chris Walker for support and perspective. Many thanks to Massimo Marengo, Joan Najita, Ed Prather, Gina Brissenden, and Ed Olszewski for your support and advocacy. To Steve Stahler, who’s Astro 10 class at the University of California at Berkeley changed my mind about the nature of science. To friends, classmates, and fellow Steward graduate students, especially Greg Walth, Kate Follette, Amanda Ford, Vanessa Bailey, Pablo Espinoza, Megan Kiminki, Justin Spilker, Gautham Narayan, Ben Weiner, and Colette Salyk. To the friends and family I have found in the Tucson community – Inez Whipple; the Tosseth-Shioya family – Jenn, Todd, and Evie; Teena, Mark, and Jonas Werley, 5 Jenise Porter, Debra Summers, Sue Bingham, Shoko Suskind, Brenda Rayco, Pete and Jeanne Snell, and Anne Stancil. Are we having fun yet? Thank you for showing me what you love so much about living in Tucson. To the friends who have been with me since this journey began – Galina Fomenkova, Kristen Orlando, Liz Gru- bert, Katey Alatalo, and Claire Little. Thank you for your patience. (Since this is nearing the point of ridiculous, I would also like to say thank you for Queen’s 1986 concert at Wembley stadium, peanut butter, coffee, and sports clich´es.) Finally, thank you to my family. To Matt and Katherine for your unwavering enthusiasm, support, and letting me crash on your couch. To Nathan for patiently getting an earful and always being willing to turn up “Roar” whenever it came on the radio (yes!). And last and certainly not least, to my parents who made sure I always ate well and had plenty of delicious brownies to test the hypothesis that academic efforts are easier with chocolate. Your faith and encouragement runs so much deeper than the sweet (literally and figuratively) gestures of support that no list of the ways you have helped me on this journey could ever be complete. 6 DEDICATION To my family 7 TABLE OF CONTENTS LISTOFFIGURES ................................ 11 LISTOFTABLES ................................. 13 ABSTRACT .................................... 14 CHAPTER 1 HOW TO BUILD AN INTERMEDIATE-MASS STAR: THE MISSINGLINKINSTARFORMATION . 15 1.1 Thebirthofstars............................. 15 1.2 Theformationoflow-massstars . 15 1.3 Trouble scaling to higher masses and the advantage of studying intermediate-massstars. 19 1.4 Protostellar jets as a probe of star formation . 23 1.4.1 ObservationalTracers . 25 1.5 Jettheory ................................. 31 1.5.1 Diskwinds............................. 31 1.5.2 X-winds .............................. 34 1.5.3 Variable accretion and outflow . 35 1.5.4 Feedback from protostellar outflows . 36 1.6 HHjetsinCarina............................. 37 1.6.1 Near-IR [Fe ii] emission as a tracer of neutral material in HH jets................................. 39 1.6.2 Jetkinematics........................... 41 1.6.3 Externally irradiated jet and outflow systems . 42 1.6.4 Using irradiated jets to constrain intermediate-mass star for- mation............................... 43 CHAPTER 2 HST /WFC3 IMAGING OF PROTOSTELLAR JETS IN CARINA: [Fe ii] EMISSION TRACING MASSIVE JETS FROM INTERMEDIATE-MASSPROTOSTARS . 44 2.1 Foreword.................................. 44 2.2 Introduction................................ 44 2.3 Observations................................ 47 2.4 ObservedJetMorphology . 49 2.4.1 HH666 .............................. 49 2.4.2 HH901andHH902 ....................... 53 8 TABLE OF CONTENTS – Continued 2.4.3 HH1066.............................. 60 2.5 Discussion................................. 61 2.5.1 [Fe ii] Emission as a Tracer of Dense, Self-Shielded Gas . 61 2.5.2 Jet Mass and Density Estimates . 64 2.5.3 Comparison to Irradiated Jets in Orion . 67 2.5.4 Comparison to Other Massive Outflows . 70 2.5.5 Environment ........................... 73 2.5.6 Collimated Outflows from Intermediate-Mass Protostars . 74 2.6 Conclusions ................................ 75 CHAPTER 3 KINEMATICS OF POWERFUL JETS FROM INTERMEDIATE-MASS PROTOSTARS IN THE CARINA NEBULA . 77 3.1 Foreword.................................. 77 3.2 Introduction................................ 78 3.3 Observations................................ 80 3.3.1 HST Hα Images.......................... 80 3.3.2 Spectroscopy ........................... 83 3.4 Results................................... 84 3.5 Discussion................................. 94 3.5.1 Velocitystructure. 94 3.5.2 Jetbending ............................ 97 3.5.3 Shocks............................... 101 3.5.4 Ages................................ 101 3.5.5 Momentuminjection . 103 3.5.6 Jetvariability ........................... 105 3.6 Conclusions ................................ 106 CHAPTER 4 DISENTANGLING THE OUTFLOW AND PROTOSTARS IN HH 900