The Turbulent Origin of Outflow and Spin Misalignment in Multiple Star Systems
Published in ApJ, 2016
Recommended citation: Offner, S. S. R., Dunham, M. M., Lee, K. I., Arce, H. G., Fielding, D. (2016). "The Turbulent Origin of Outflow and Spin Misalignment in Multiple Star Systems." . ApJ, 827:L11. pdf version available here
The protostellar outflows of wide-separation forming binaries frequently appear misaligned. We use magneto-hydrodynamic simulations to investigate the alignment of protostellar spin and molecular outflows for forming binary pairs. We show that the protostellar pairs, which form from turbulent fragmentation within a single parent core, have randomly oriented angular momentum. Although the pairs migrate to closer separations, their spins remain partially misaligned. We produce 12CO(2-1) synthetic observations of the simulations and characterize the outflow orientation in the emission maps. The CO-identified outflows exhibit a similar random distribution and are also statistically consistent with the observed distribution of molecular outflows. We conclude that the observed misalignment provides a clear signature of binary formation via turbulent fragmentation. The persistence of misaligned outflows and stellar spins following dynamical evolution may provide a signature of binary origins for more evolved multiple star systems.
Stella S. R. Offner, Michael M. Dunham, Katherine I. Lee, Hector G. Arce, Drummond Fielding. The Turbulent Origin of Outflow and Spin Misalignment in Multiple Star Systems. ApJ, 827:L11, Aug 2016