Jets from Young Stars

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent observational and theoretical advances in understanding jets from young stars, highlighting their role in star and planet formation and discussing how new facilities are enhancing our knowledge.

Contribution

It synthesizes recent observational data and models to improve understanding of jet formation and their significance in early stellar and planetary development.

Findings

Jets are crucial in removing angular momentum during star formation.

New facilities like ALMA and JWST are advancing jet observation capabilities.

Magnetohydrodynamic models are key to understanding jet launching mechanisms.

Abstract

Jets are ubiquitous in the Universe and, as demonstrated in this volume, are seen from a large number of astrophysical objects. For a number of reasons, in particular their proximity and the abundant range of diagnostics to determine their characteristics, jets from young stars and their associated outflows may offer us the best opportunity to discover how jets are generated in general and the nature of the link between outflows and their accretion disks. Recently it has become clear that jets may be fundamental to the star formation process in removing angular momentum from the surrounding protoplanetary disk thereby allowing accretion to proceed. Moreover, with the realisation that planetary formation begins much earlier than previously thought, jets may also help forge planets by determining initial environmental characteristics. This seems to be particularly true within the so-called terrestrial planet forming zone. Here we review observations of jets from young stars which have greatly benefitted from new facilities such as ALMA, space observatories like Spitzer, Herschel and HST, and radio facilities like LOFAR and the VLA. Interferometers such as CHARA and GRAVITY are starting to make inroads into resolving how they are launched, and we can look forward to a bright future in our understanding of this phenomenon when JWST and the SKA come on stream. In addition, we examine the various magnetohydrodynamic models for how jets from young stars are thought to be generated and how observations may help us select between these various options.