Dr. B. Nisini

Rome Observatory, Italy

Mass Accretion Onto Low-Mass Young Stars: Our Recent Progress with Optical-IR Observations

Abstract:

Mass loss in the form jets and winds is intimately related to disc accretion, contributing to the removal of angular momentum excess and to the dissipation of disk gas that eventually leads to the formation of proto-planetary systems. To understand the role of the mass loss phenomena on the disc evolution it is of key importance to address their frequency and properties on large samples of sources within a star forming region. I present here a survey on the occurrence of fast jets and slow winds in a sample of 130 T Tauri stars of the Lupus, Chameleon and sigma Ori clouds, observed with X-shooter at VLT. The two phenomena have been traced by means of optical forbidden line emission, and their properties compared with stellar and accretion properties of the central star. In particular, I will show that there is a large diversity of jet properties among sources with the same mass and mass accretion rates, suggesting that the evolution of jets proceeds with timescales shorter that the accretion evolution. I will discuss how such a study could be extended in the near-future on younger and highly accreting protostars through IR surveys performed with JWST and ground based sensitive instrumentation.

Location: 31 Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin 2

Upcoming seminars:
https://www.dias.ie/2018/03/07/astronomy-and-astrophysics-seminar-schedule-2018/