2025 Project Description

The interactions between envelopes and outflows in young protostars

Supervisors

Travis Thieme, Hsi-Wei Yen
Find out more about supervisors on ASIAA website

Task Description and Goals

How the solar system was formed is fundemental to understanding our place in the universe. In order to learn about its formation, we look to young, protostellar systems as analogues to paint an overall picture of the process. Protostars are born from dense clouds of gas and dust that collapse due to gravity. As the material falls inward towards the center, a protostar and protostellar disk are formed due to conservation of angular momentum. In addition, some material that has too much angular momentum is ejected through bipolar outflows. In this project, we will study how the material falling inwards immediately adjacent to the outflow is affected.

The goal of this project is to characterize the physical and dynamical nature of the regions where the envelope and outflow interact. We will use observational data from the world's current largest radio interferometric telescope, ALMA, to derive fundamental quantities such as the mass, angular momentum, and energies in both the outflows and adjacent envelope. This will allow us to characterize these regions for the first time in a young protostar. The goal of this project is to characterize the physical and dynamical nature of the regions where the envelope and outflow interact. We will use observational data from the world's current largest radio interferometric telescope, ALMA, to derive fundamental quantities such as the mass, angular momentum, and energies in both the outflows and adjacent envelope. This will allow us to characterize these regions for the first time in a young protostar.

Required Background

1. Basic/advanced knowledge in astronomy and physics is preferred, but not mandatory. 2. Basic knowledge and skills in computer programming using Python is desirable.