Hot water in low-mass protostars

Dominika Itrich, Agata Karska and Monika Matuszak

During the formation of low-mass stars, the collapse of the dense envelope is accompanied by ejections of jets and outflows extending even up to parsec scales. Recent far-infrared spectroscopy with Herschel/PACS revealed hot molecular gas (>100K) extending along the outflows from several nearby protostars. Here, we analysed emission from highly-excited rotational lines of water (E_up/k_B∼1000K) in a sample of 90 low-mass protostars (Karska et al., 2018). Such hot water is detected in 9 sources. We calculated water rotational temperature using Boltzmann diagrams and looked for correlations with highly excited CO lines and various sources properties. The sources with hot water are ideal candidates for follow-up studies with the James Webb Space Telescope, which will access hot water lines at mid-IR with ∼ 50 times higher spatial resolution than Herschel mission.

Proceedings of the Polish Astronomical Society, vol. 7, 184-186 (2018)

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