Shock Waves in Outflows from Young Stars

Hartigan, P. (Rice)

This review focuses on physics of the cooling zones behind radiative shocks and the emission line diagnostics that can be used to infer physical conditions and mass loss rates in jets from young stars. Spatial separations of the cooling zones from the shock fronts, now resolvable with HST, and recent evidence for C-shocks have greatly increased our understanding of how shocks in outflows interact with the surrounding medium and with other material within the flow. By combining multiple epoch HST images, one can create `movies' of flows like those produced from numerical codes, and learn what kinds of instabilities develop within these systems.

Journal of publication: Astrophysics and Space Science 2003, Vol 287 p111.