The kinematics of the magnetised protostellar core IRAS15398-3359

TL;DR

This study investigates the early-stage kinematics and magnetic field influence in the protostellar core IRAS15398-3359 using molecular line observations and polarization data, revealing outflow motions, filamentary material flow, and magnetic alignment.

Contribution

It combines molecular line kinematic analysis with polarization data to explore magnetic field influence during early star formation, providing new insights into core dynamics.

Findings

Velocity gradient indicates outflow motion.

Material flows from filament to core.

Magnetic field aligns with core rotation axis.

Abstract

Observations of protostellar envelopes are essential to understand better the process of gravitational collapse toward star and planet formation. From a theoretical perspective, magnetic fields are considered an important factor during the early stages of star formation, especially during the main accretion phase. We aim to study the relation between kinematics and magnetic fields at a very early stage of the star formation process by using data from the Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment (APEX) single dish antenna with the angular resolution of 28". We observed the two molecular lines C18O(2-1) and DCO+(3-2), toward the Class 0 young stellar object IRAS15398-3359. We implement a multi-component Gaussian fitting on the molecular data to study the kinematics. Also, we use previous polarization observations on this source to predict the influence of the magnetic field on the core. The velocity gradient along the central object can be explained as an ongoing outflow motion. We report flowing of material from the filament toward the central object, and of the merging of two velocity components in the C18O (2-1) emission around the protostar position, probably due to the merging of filamentary clouds. Our analysis shows that the large-scale magnetic field line observed previously is preferentially aligned to the rotation axis of the core.