No Arabic abstract
We present ALMA Band 7 polarisation observations of the OMC-1 region of the Orion molecular cloud. We find that the polarisation pattern observed in the region is likely to have been significantly altered by the radiation field of the $>10^{4}$ L$_{odot}$ high-mass protostar Orion Source I. In the protostars optically thick disc, polarisation is likely to arise from dust self-scattering. In material to the south of Source I - previously identified as a region of anomalous polarisation emission - we observe a polarisation geometry concentric around Source I. We demonstrate that Source Is extreme luminosity may be sufficient to make the radiative precession timescale shorter than the Larmor timescale for moderately large grains ($> 0.005-0.1,mu$m), causing them to precess around the radiation anisotropy vector (k-RATs) rather than the magnetic field direction (B-RATs). This requires relatively unobscured emission from Source I, supporting the hypothesis that emission in this region arises from the cavity wall of the Source I outflow. This is one of the first times that evidence for k-RAT alignment has been found outside of a protostellar disc or AGB star envelope. Alternatively, the grains may remain aligned by B-RATs and trace gas infall onto the Main Ridge. Elsewhere, we largely find the magnetic field geometry to be radial around the BN/KL explosion centre, consistent with previous observations. However, in the Main Ridge, the magnetic field geometry appears to remain consistent with the larger-scale magnetic field, perhaps indicative of the ability of the dense Ridge to resist disruption by the BN/KL explosion.
We have measured continuum flux densities of a high-mass protostar candidate, a radio source I in the Orion KL region (Orion Source I) using the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) at band 8 with an angular resolution of 0.1. The continuum emission at 430, 460, and 490 GHz associated with Source I shows an elongated structure along the northwest-southeast direction perpendicular to the so-called low-velocity bipolar outflow. The deconvolved size of the continuum source, 90 au times 20 au, is consistent with those reported previously at other millimeter/submillimeter wavelength. The flux density can be well fitted to the optically thick black-body spectral energy distribution (SED), and the brightness temperature is evaluated to be 700-800 K. It is much lower than that in the case of proton-electron or H- free-free radiations. Our data are consistent with the latest ALMA results by Plambeck & Wright (2016), in which the continuum emission have been proposed to arise from the edge-on circumstellar disk via thermal dust emission, unless the continuum source consists of an unresolved structure with the smaller beam filling factor.
The spectral energy distribution (SED) in the millimetre (mm) to centimetre (cm) range is a useful tool for characterising the dust in protostellar envelopes as well as free-free emission from the protostar and outflow. While many studies have been carried out towards low- and high-mass protostars, little exists so far about solar-type protostars in high-mass star-forming regions, which are likely to be representatives of the conditions where the Solar System was born. We focus here on the OMC-2/3 solar-type protostars, which are bounded by nearby HII regions and which are, therefore, potentially affected by the high-UV illumination. We aim to understand whether the small-scale structure ($leq$1000 au) and the evolutionary status of these solar-type protostars are affected by the nearby HII regions, as is the case for the large-scale ($leq$10$^4$ au) gas chemical composition. We used ALMA in the 1.3 mm band (246.2 GHz) to image the continuum of 16 OMC-2/3 solar-type protostars, with an angular resolution of 0.25$$ (100 au). We completed our data with archival data from the VANDAM survey of Orion Protostars at 333 and 32.9 GHz, respectively, to construct the dust SED, extract several dust parameters and to assess whether free-free emission is contaminating their dust SED in the cm range. From the mm to cm range dust SED, we found low dust emissivity spectral indexes ($beta < 1$) for the majority of our source sample and free-free emission towards only 5 of the 16 sample sources. We were also able to confirm or correct the evolutionary status of the source sample. Finally, we did not find any dependence of the source dust parameters on their location in the OMC-2/3 filament. Our results show that the small-scale dust properties of the OMC-2/3 protostars are not affected by the high- UV illumination from the nearby HII regions.
The dust properties in high-redshift galaxies provide clues to the origin of dust in the Universe. Although dust has been detected in galaxies at redshift $z>7$, it is difficult to constrain the dominant dust sources only from the total dust amount. Thus, we calculate the evolution of grain size distribution, expecting that different dust sources predict different grain size distributions. Using the star formation time-scale and the total baryonic mass constrained by the data in the literature, we calculate the evolution of grain size distribution. To explain the total dust masses in ALMA-detected $z>7$ galaxies, the following two solutions are possible: (i) high dust condensation efficiency in stellar ejecta, and (ii) efficient accretion (dust growth by accreting the gas-phase metals in the interstellar medium). We find that these two scenarios predict significantly different grain size distributions: in (i), the dust is dominated by large grains ($agtrsim 0.1~mu$m, where $a$ is the grain radius), while in (ii), the small-grain ($alesssim 0.01~mu$m) abundance is significantly enhanced by accretion. Accordingly, extinction curves are expected to be much steeper in (ii) than in (i). Thus, we conclude that extinction curves provide a viable way to distinguish the dominant dust sources in the early phase of galaxy evolution.
In this {it Letter}, we present sensitive millimeter SiO (J=5-4; $ u$=0) line observations of the outflow arising from the enigmatic object Orion Source I made with the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA). The observations reveal that at scales of a few thousand AU, the outflow has a marked butterfly morphology along a northeast-southwest axis. However, contrary to what is found in the SiO and H$_2$O maser observations at scales of tens of AU, the blueshifted radial velocities of the moving gas are found to the northwest, while the redshifted velocities are in the southeast. The ALMA observations are complemented with SiO (J=8-7; $ u$=0) maps (with a similar spatial resolution) obtained with the Submillimeter Array (SMA). These observations also show a similar morphology and velocity structure in this outflow. We discuss some possibilities to explain these differences at small and large scales across the flow.
We present observational results of the submillimeter H2O and SiO lines toward a candidate high-mass young stellar object Orion Source I using ALMA. The spatial structures of the high excitation lines at lower-state energies of >2500 K show compact structures consistent with the circumstellar disk and/or base of the northeast-southwest bipolar outflow with a 100 au scale. The highest excitation transition, the SiO (v=4) line at band 8, has the most compact structure. In contrast, lower-excitation transitions are more extended than 200 au tracing the outflow. Almost all the line show velocity gradients perpendicular to the outflow axis suggesting rotation motions of the circumstellar disk and outflow. While some of the detected lines show broad line profiles and spatially extended emission components indicative of thermal excitation, the strong H2O lines at 321 GHz, 474 GHz, and 658 GHz with brightness temperatures of >1000 K show clear signatures of maser action.