An Extremely Young Protostellar Core, MMS 1/ OMC-3: Episodic Mass Ejection History Traced by the Micro SiO Jet (2401.13204v1)

Abstract: We present ${\sim}0.2$ arcsec ($\sim$80 au) resolution observations of the CO (2-1) and SiO (5-4) lines made with the Atacama large millimeter/submillimeter array toward an extremely young intermediate-mass protostellar source (t$_{\rm dyn}<$1000 years), MMS 1 located in the Orion Molecular Cloud-3 region. We have successfully imaged a very compact CO molecular outflow associated with MMS 1, having deprojected lobe sizes of $\sim$18000 au (red-shifted lobe) and $\sim$35000 au (blue-shifted lobe). We have also detected an extremely compact ($\lesssim$1000 au) and collimated SiO protostellar jet within the CO outflow. The maximum deprojected jet speed is measured to be as high as 93 km s$^{-1}$. The SiO jet wiggles and displays a chain of knots. Our detection of the molecular outflow and jet is the first direct evidence that MMS 1 already hosts a protostar. The position-velocity diagram obtained from the SiO emission shows two distinct structures: (i) bow-shocks associated with the tips of the outflow, and (ii) a collimated jet, showing the jet velocities linearly increasing with the distance from the driving source. Comparisons between the observations and numerical simulations quantitatively share similarities such as multiple-mass ejection events within the jet and Hubble-like flow associated with each mass ejection event. Finally, while there is a weak flux decline seen in the 850 $\mu$m light curve obtained with JCMT/SCUBA 2 toward MMS 1, no dramatic flux change events are detected. This suggests that there has not been a clear burst event within the last 8 years.