Episodic Accretion in Protostars -- An ALMA Survey of Molecular Jets in the Orion Molecular Cloud

TL;DR

This study uses ALMA observations to analyze 42 protostars, revealing episodic jet activity linked to accretion processes, with ejection periods of 20-175 years, and highlighting the influence of envelope mass on jet properties.

Contribution

First systematic high-resolution survey of molecular jets in protostars, establishing correlations between jet activity, accretion, and envelope mass, and quantifying episodic ejection periods.

Findings

Jet velocities and mass-loss rates depend on bolometric luminosity and envelope mass.

Ejection periods range from 20 to 175 years, anti-correlated with envelope mass.

Episodic events influence ice-gas balance near the snowline.

Abstract

Protostellar outflows and jets are almost ubiquitous characteristics during the mass accretion phase, and encode the history of stellar accretion, complex-organic molecule (COM) formation, and planet formation. Episodic jets are likely connected to episodic accretion through the disk. Despite the importance, there is a lack of studies of a statistically significant sample of protostars via high-sensitivity and high-resolution observations. To explore episodic accretion mechanisms and the chronologies of episodic events, we investigated 42 fields containing protostars with ALMA observations of CO, SiO, and 1.3\,mm continuum emission. We detected SiO emission in 21 fields, where 19 sources are driving confirmed molecular jets with high abundances of SiO. Jet velocities, mass-loss rates, mass-accretion rates, and periods of accretion events are found to be dependent on the driving forces of the jet (e.g., bolometric luminosity, envelope mass). Next, velocities and mass-loss rates are positively correlated with the surrounding envelope mass, suggesting that the presence of high mass around protostars increases the ejection-accretion activity. We determine mean periods of ejection events of 20$-$175 years for our sample, which could be associated with perturbation zones of $\sim$ 2$-$25\,au extent around the protostars. Also, mean ejection periods are anti-correlated with the envelope mass, where high-accretion rates may trigger more frequent ejection events. The observed periods of outburst/ejection are much shorter than the freeze-out time scale of the simplest COMs like CH$_3$OH, suggesting that episodic events largely maintain the ice-gas balance inside and around the snowline.