Contatto di riferimento: Marcello Giroletti
Partecipanti: Dr. Carlos Carrasco-Gonzalez (Instituto de Radioastronomia y Astrofisica, UNAM, Morelia, Mexico)
Abstract: During the last decades protostellar jets have been intensively studied at radio wavelengths. It is now well established that young stellar objects (YSOs) in their earliest stages emit radio emission at cm wavelengths which is associated with free-free emission from the base protostellar jets.
Since these objects are deeply embedded in large amounts of dust and gas surrounding the protostar, radio observations have revealed as the best way to study the phenomena that takes place very near the protostar. We have now been able to study the environment of these protostars up to physical scales of only a few AU.
However, as we have performed higher sensitive and higher angular resolution observations, we have also been able to discover new phenomena which, not only, have important implications for the star formation theory, but also add new interesting questions.
Here, I will talk about two important results we have obtained in two star-forming regions. The first one, the discovery of synchrotron emission from a protostellar jet, imply that protostellar jets are able to accelerate particles up to relativistic velocities, even when these objects are considered the least powerful between astrophysical jets (AGN jets, micro quasars, etc..).
Moreover, the detection of linearly polarized emission allows to study the magnetic field, one of the most important ingredients in the jet formation and collimation, but yet, one of the most unknown parameters in star formation. The second results is the observation, in real time, of the collimation of a protostellar wind, posing interesting questions on how jets are collimated in these systems.
(note unusual date and time)