The Molecular Gas Environment around Two Herbig Ae/Be Stars: Resolving the Outflows of LkHa 198 and LkHa 225S

TL;DR

This study uses high-resolution molecular line observations to resolve multiple outflows around Herbig Ae/Be stars LkHa 198 and LkHa 225S, revealing complex outflow structures and their environments.

Contribution

It provides the first high-resolution imaging of outflows around these stars, distinguishing multiple outflows and their driving sources in a complex molecular environment.

Findings

LkHa 198 has at least four outflows, none centered on LkHa 198-IR.

LkHa 225S is associated with two outflows, with a possible third.

No 2.6 mm continuum detected in either region.

Abstract

Observations of outflows associated with pre-main-sequence stars reveal details about morphology, binarity and evolutionary states of young stellar objects. We present molecular line data from the Berkeley-Illinois-Maryland Association array and Five Colleges Radio Astronomical Observatory toward the regions containing the Herbig Ae/Be stars LkHa 198 and LkHa 225S. Single dish observations of 12CO 1-0, 13CO 1-0, N2H+ 1-0 and CS 2-1 were made over a field of 4.3' x 4.3' for each species. 12CO data from FCRAO were combined with high resolution BIMA array data to achieve a naturally-weighted synthesized beam of 6.75'' x 5.5'' toward LkHa 198 and 5.7'' x 3.95'' toward LkHa 225S, representing resolution improvements of factors of approximately 10 and 5 over existing data. By using uniform weighting, we achieved another factor of two improvement. The outflow around LkHa 198 resolves into at least four outflows, none of which are centered on LkHa 198-IR, but even at our resolution, we cannot exclude the possibility of an outflow associated with this source. In the LkHa 225S region, we find evidence for two outflows associated with LkHa 225S itself and a third outflow is likely driven by this source. Identification of the driving sources is still resolution-limited and is also complicated by the presence of three clouds along the line of sight toward the Cygnus molecular cloud. 13CO is present in the environments of both stars along with cold, dense gas as traced by CS and (in LkHa 225S) N2H+. No 2.6 mm continuum is detected in either region in relatively shallow maps compared to existing continuum observations.