A disk-wind driving the rotating molecular outflow in CB 26

TL;DR

This study uses high-resolution SMA observations to analyze the kinematics and structure of a rotating molecular outflow in CB 26, providing evidence for a disk wind driving the outflow.

Contribution

First detailed high-resolution study linking disk wind models with molecular outflow rotation in CB 26.

Findings

Outflow shows rotation aligned with the edge-on disk.

Outflow properties vary with height, consistent with disk wind models.

Mass and dynamical parameters support a disk wind driving mechanism.

Abstract

We present 12CO (J=2-1) sensitive molecular line and 1.3 mm continuum observations made with the Submillimeter Array (SMA) of the bipolar outflow associated with the young star located in the Bok globule known as CB 26. The SMA observations were carried out in its extended configuration allowing us to study the kinematics and structure of the outflow with about 1 arcsec or 140 au resolution. We find that the dusty and edge-on circumstellar disk related with the outflow has an projected spatial (deconvolved) size of 196 au x 42 au with a total (gas and dust) mass of 0.031 Msun. We estimated a dynamical mass for the central object of 0.66 Msun, and the mass of the molecular outflow of 5x10-5 Msun. The observations confirm that the outflow rotation has a similar orientation to that of the edge-on disk. For the outflow, we find that the following quantities: the rotation velocity, the specific angular momentum, and the launching radius, decrease with the height above mid-plane, as observed in other molecular rotating outflows. The radius, and expansion velocity also increase with the height above the disk midplane. Estimations for the outflow linear momentum rate, the outflow angular momentum rate, and the accretion luminosity seem to be well explained by a disk wind present in CB26.