YSO jets in the Galactic Plane from UWISH2: I - MHO catalogue for Serpens and Aquila

TL;DR

This survey of YSO jets in the Galactic Plane using infrared emission lines significantly increases the known number of molecular hydrogen outflows, revealing their distribution, fluxes, and orientations relative to the Galactic Plane.

Contribution

The paper presents the first large-scale, unbiased survey of YSO jets in the Galactic Plane, cataloging 131 outflows and analyzing their properties and spatial distribution.

Findings

Increased the known outflows by 15 times.

Most outflows are associated with molecular cloud complexes.

Detected a significant overabundance of flows perpendicular to the Galactic Plane.

Abstract

Jets and outflows from Young Stellar Objects (YSOs) are important signposts of currently ongoing star formation. In order to study these objects we are conducting an unbiased survey along the Galactic Plane in the 1-0S(1) emission line of molecular hydrogen at 2.122mu using the UK Infrared Telescope. In this paper we are focusing on a 33 square degree sized region in Serpens and Aquila (18deg < l < 30deg; -1.5deg < b < +1.5deg). We trace 131 jets and outflows from YSOs, which results in a 15 fold increase in the total number of known Molecular Hydrogen Outflows. Compared to this, the total integrated 1-0S(1) flux of all objects just about doubles, since the known objects occupy the bright end of the flux distribution. Our completeness limit is 3*10^-18Wm^-2 with 70% of the objects having fluxes of less than 10^-17Wm^-2. Generally, the flows are associated with Giant Molecular Cloud complexes and have a scale height of 25-30pc with respect to the Galactic Plane. We are able to assign potential source candidates to about half the objects. Typically, the flows are clustered in groups of 3-5 objects, within a radius of 5pc. These groups are separated on average by about half a degree, and 2/3rd of the entire survey area is devoid of outflows. We find a large range of apparent outflow lengths from 4arcsec to 130arcsec. If we assume a distance of 3kpc, only 10% of all outflows are of parsec scale. There is a 2.6sigma over abundance of flow position angles roughly perpendicular to the Galactic Plane.