Simulating protostellar jets simultaneously at launching and observational scales

TL;DR

This paper presents the first 2.5-D MHD simulations of protostellar jets covering both launching and observational scales, demonstrating the viability of magnetocentrifugal launching mechanisms.

Contribution

It introduces a new simulation approach that models jets from launch to observation scales, providing direct numerical evidence supporting magnetocentrifugal jet launching.

Findings

Magnetocentrifugal launching can produce realistic protostellar jets.

Simulation results match observed jet properties.

Conditions at the disc surface influence observable jet features.

Abstract

We present the first 2.5-D MHD simulations of protostellar jets that include both the region in which the jet is launched magnetocentrifugally at scale lengths $<0.1$ AU, and where the propagating jet is observed at scale lengths $>10^3$ AU. These simulations, performed with the new AMR-MHD code AZEuS, reveal interesting relationships between conditions at the disc surface, such as the magnetic field strength, and direct observables such as proper motion, jet rotation, jet radius, and mass flux. By comparing these quantities with observed values, we present direct numerical evidence that the magnetocentrifugal launching mechanism is capable, by itself, of launching realistic protostellar jets.