No Arabic abstract
We present a characterization of the binary protostar system that is forming within a dense core in the isolated dark cloud BHR71. The pair of protostars, IRS1 and IRS2, are both in the Class 0 phase, determined from observations that resolve the sources from 1 um out to 250 um and from 1.3 mm to 1.3cm. The resolved observations enable the luminosities of IRS1 and IRS2 to be independently measured (14.7 and 1.7L_sun, respectively), in addition to the bolometric temperatures 68~K, and 38~K, respectively. The surrounding core was mapped in NH3 (1,1) with the Parkes radio telescope, and followed with higher-resolution observations from ATCA in NH3 (1,1) and 1.3cm continuum. The protostars were then further characterized with ALMA observations in the 1.3~mm continuum along with N2D+ (J=3-2), 12CO, 13CO, and C18O (J=2-1) molecular lines. The Parkes observations find evidence for a velocity gradient across the core surrounding the two protostars, while ATCA reveals more complex velocity structure toward the protostars within the large-scale gradient. The ALMA observations then reveal that the two protostars are at the same velocity in C18O, and N2H+ exhibits a similar velocity structure as NH3. However, the C18O kinematics reveal that the rotation on scales $<$1000~AU around IRS1 and IRS2 are in opposite directions. Taken with the lack of a systematic velocity difference between the pair, it is unlikely that their formation resulted from rotational fragmentation. We instead conclude that the binary system most likely formed via turbulent fragmentation of the core.
We present 1.3 mm ALMA observations of polarized dust emission toward the wide-binary protostellar system BHR 71 IRS1 and IRS2. IRS1 features what appears to be a natal, hourglass-shaped magnetic field. In contrast, IRS2 exhibits a magnetic field that has been affected by its bipolar outflow. Toward IRS2, the polarization is confined mainly to the outflow cavity walls. Along the northern edge of the redshifted outflow cavity of IRS2, the polarized emission is sandwiched between the outflow and a filament of cold, dense gas traced by N$_2$D$^+$, toward which no dust polarization is detected. This suggests that the origin of the enhanced polarization in IRS2 is the irradiation of the outflow cavity walls, which enables the alignment of dust grains with respect to the magnetic field -- but only to a depth of ~300 au, beyond which the dust is cold and unpolarized. However, in order to align grains deep enough in the cavity walls, and to produce the high polarization fraction seen in IRS2, the aligning photons are likely to be in the mid- to far-infrared range, which suggests a degree of grain growth beyond what is typically expected in very young, Class 0 sources. Finally, toward IRS1 we see a narrow, linear feature with a high (10-20%) polarization fraction and a well ordered magnetic field that is not associated with the bipolar outflow cavity. We speculate that this feature may be a magnetized accretion streamer; however, this has yet to be confirmed by kinematic observations of dense-gas tracers.
The collapse of the protostellar envelope results in the growth of the protostar and the development of a protoplanetary disk, playing a critical role during the early stages of star formation. Characterizing the gas infall in the envelope constrains the dynamical models of star formation. We present unambiguous signatures of infall, probed by optically thick molecular lines, toward an isolated embedded protostar, BHR 71 IRS1. The three dimensional radiative transfer calculations indicate that a slowly rotating infalling envelope model following the inside-out collapse reproduces the observations of both HCO$^{+}$ $J=4rightarrow3$ and CS $J=7rightarrow6$ lines, and the low velocity emission of the HCN $J=4rightarrow3$ line. The envelope has a model-derived age of 12000$pm$3000 years after the initial collapse. The envelope model underestimates the high velocity emission at the HCN $J=4rightarrow3$ and H$^{13}$CN $J=4rightarrow3$ lines, where outflows or a Keplerian disk may contribute. The ALMA observations serendipitously discover the emission of complex organic molecules (COMs) concentrated within a radius of 100 au, indicating that BHR 71 IRS1 harbors a hot corino. Eight species of COMs are identified, including CH$_{3}$OH and CH$_{3}$OCHO, along with H$_{2}$CS, SO$_{2}$ and HCN $v_{2}=1$. The emission of methyl formate and $^{13}$C-methanol shows a clear velocity gradient within a radius of 50 au, hinting at an unresolved Keplerian rotating disk.
The magnetic field structure of a star-forming Bok globule BHR 71 was determined based on near-infrared polarimetric observations of background stars. The magnetic field in BHR 71 was mapped from 25 stars. By using a simple 2D parabolic function, the plane-of-sky magnetic axis of the core was found to be $theta_{rm mag} = 125^{circ} pm 11^{circ}$. The plane-of-sky mean magnetic field strength of BHR 71 was found to be $B_{rm pos} = 8.8 - 15.0$ $mu$G, indicating that the BHR 71 core is magnetically supercritical with $lambda = 1.44 - 2.43$. Taking into account the effect of thermal/turbulent pressure and the plane-of-sky magnetic field component, the critical mass of BHR 71 was $M_{rm cr} = 14.5-18.7$ M$_{odot}$, which is consistent with the observed core mass of $M_{rm core} approx 14.7$ M$_{odot}$ (Yang et al. 2017). We conclude that BHR 71 is in a condition close to a kinematically critical state, and the magnetic field direction lies close to the plane of sky. Since BHR 71 is a star-forming core, a significantly subcritical condition (i.e., the magnetic field direction deviating from the plane of sky) is unlikely, and collapsed from a condition close to a kinematically critical state. There are two possible scenarios to explain the curved magnetic fields of BHR 71, one is an hourglass-like field structure due to mass accumulation and the other is the Inoue & Fukui (2013) mechanism, which proposes the interaction of the core with a shock wave to create curved magnetic fields wrapping around the core.
BHR 71 is a well isolated Bok globule located at ~200 pc, which harbours a highly collimated bipolar outflow. The outflow is driven by a very young Class 0 protostar with a luminosity of ~9 L_sun. It is one of a very small number that show enhanced abundances of a number of molecular species, notably SiO and CH3OH, due to shock processing of the ambient medium. In this paper the properties of the globule and outflow are discussed.
The early stages of low-mass star formation are likely to be subject to intense ionization by protostellar energetic MeV particles. As a result, the surrounding gas is enriched in molecular ions, such as HCO$^{+}$ and N$_{2}$H$^{+}$. Nonetheless, this phenomenon remains poorly understood for Class 0 objects. Recently, based on Herschel observations taken as part of the key program Chemical HErschel Surveys of Star forming regions (CHESS), a very low HCO$^{+}$/N$_{2}$H$^{+}$ abundance ratio of about 3-4, has been reported toward the protocluster OMC-2 FIR4. This finding suggests a cosmic-ray ionization rate in excess of 10$^{-14}$ s$^{-1}$, much higher than the canonical value of $zeta$ = 3$times$10$^{-17}$ s$^{-1}$ (value expected in quiescent dense clouds). To assess the specificity of OMC-2 FIR4, we have extended this study to a sample of sources in low- and intermediate mass. More specifically, we seek to measure the HCO$^{+}$/N$_2$H$^{+}$ abundance ratio from high energy lines (J $ge$ 6) toward this source sample in order to infer the flux of energetic particles in the warm and dense gas surrounding the protostars. We use observations performed with the Heterodyne Instrument for the FarInfrared spectrometer on board the Herschel Space Observatory toward a sample of 9 protostars. We report HCO$^{+}$/N$_2$H$^{+}$ abundance ratios in the range of 5 up to 73 toward our source sample. The large error bars do not allow us to conclude whether OMC-2~FIR4 is a peculiar source. Nonetheless, an important result is that the measured HCO$^{+}$/N$_2$H$^{+}$ ratio does not vary with the source luminosity. At the present time, OMC-2 FIR4 remains the only source where a high flux of energetic particles is clearly evident. More sensitive and higher angular resolution observations are required to further investigate this process.