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"Two-component Jets - COMParing Theory, Observations and Numerical simulations" (TJ - COMPTON)
Start date: Oct 15, 2009, End date: Oct 14, 2012 PROJECT  FINISHED 

"Young stellar object jets are supersonic and highly collimated plasma outflows that propagate for large distances. Although their association to star formation is a well established fact, there are still open questions such as whether the outflow is of a disk or stellar origin, or how the jet's time variable structure is produced. Recent theoretical arguments and observational data seem to point towards the two-component nature of protostellar jets, a scenario wherein a high mass loss rate disk wind surrounds a hot stellar outflow. In this context, our group has carried out numerical simulations of several two-component jet models, setting as initial conditions a combination of two well studied analytical solutions. We investigated the dynamics and the steady state features of many interesting cases as a function of the mixing parameters and the enforced time variability. A highly significant result was the morphological reproduction of the large scale knot-like structure of jets observed in many young stellar objects. However, despite the successful combination of the analytical and numerical approaches to address several dynamical aspects of the jet phenomenon, the link with real observations is still missing. Therefore, the current project will attempt to merge theory, numerical simulations and observations for the first time towards a complete picture to explain protostellar jets. In a first stage, the available two-component jet models will be improved and extended to larger scales comparable to the angular resolution of modern telescopes. Then, radiation losses will be applied during the numerical evolution, effectively producing synthetic emission maps. The output data will be analyzed using modern astronomical techniques, achieving to confront theoretical models and real observations on the same ground. The feedback from this comparison will allow the construction of realistic YSO outflow models capable to reproduce multiple observed features, ultimately understanding the physics of protostellar jets."

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