Numerical simulations of stellar jets and comparison between synthetic and observed maps: clues to the launch mechanism

TL;DR

This paper uses numerical simulations and synthetic observations to analyze stellar jets, comparing them with actual HST data to understand their launch mechanisms, suggesting a common origin for different jets from T Tauri stars.

Contribution

It demonstrates that diverse stellar jets can originate from a single disk-wind model by matching synthetic and observed data, supporting a unified jet launching mechanism.

Findings

Different jets from T Tauri stars can be explained by the same disk-wind model.

Synthetic PVDs match observed data, validating the simulation approach.

The magnetic field configuration influences jet morphology and kinematics.

Abstract

High angular resolution spectra obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (HST/STIS) provide rich morphological and kinematical information about the stellar jet phenomenon, which allows us to test theoretical models efficiently. In this work, numerical simulations of stellar jets in the propagation region are executed with the PLUTO code, by adopting inflow conditions that arise from former numerical simulations of magnetized outflows, accelerated by the disk-wind mechanism in the launching region. By matching the two regions, information about the magneto-centrifugal accelerating mechanism underlying a given astrophysical object can be extrapolated by comparing synthetic and observed position-velocity diagrams (PVDs). We show that quite different jets, like those from the young T Tauri stars DG-Tau and RW-Aur, may originate from the same disk-wind model for different configurations of the magnetic field at the disk surface. This result supports the idea that all the observed jets may be generated by the same mechanism.