English

Simulations of Protostar-Driven Photoionization in Herbig-Haro Jets

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics 2026-04-07 v2 Astrophysics of Galaxies High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

Abstract

Recent studies showed that observations of line emission from shocks in YSO jets require a substantial amount of ionization of the pre-shock matter. Photoionization from X-ray emitted close to the central source may be responsible for the initial ionization fraction. The aim of our work is to study the effect of X-ray photoionization, coming from the vicinity of the central star, on the ionization fraction inside the jet that can be advected at large distances. For this purpose we have performed axisymmetric MHD jet launching simulations including photoionization and optically thin losses using PLUTO. For typical X-ray luminosities in classical T-Tauri stars, we see that the photoionization is responsible for ionizing to 10 % -20 % the jet close to the star.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2410.11692,
  title  = {Simulations of Protostar-Driven Photoionization in Herbig-Haro Jets},
  author = {Z. Ahmane and A. Mignone and C. Zanni and S. Massaglia and A. Bouldjderi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2410.11692},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

Revised version. Major improvements in language, clarity, and presentation. All scientific results unchanged. Published version: Astrophys. Space Sci. 365, 94 (2020)