Abstract: Class 0/I protostars are in the earliest phases of formation and are deeply embedded in their environments. The dense natal surroundings impede kinematic measurements of parameters such as protostellar masses and disk radii. We present a study of gas dynamical mass measurements of Class 0 protostar Per-Emb-14 in the Perseus Molecular Cloud. We use FERIA — a combined Keplerian disk and infalling-rotating envelope model — to create position-position-velocity cubes using a grid search method for comparison with ALMA C18O observations. We find a protostellar mass of 0.41 ± 0.17 M⊙, similar to simpler Keplerian disk fitting. We also report a maximum system outer radius Rout = 758 ± 177 au. However, the spatial resolution of the observations limits accuracy. We also find a centrifugal barrier radius of 430 ± 174 au, indicating Keplerian motions dominate over infall out to a relatively large radius.
Over the 2023 summer, I worked in the University of Texas Austin REU program. During this time, I studied under Dr. Dominique Segura-Cox and Professor Stella Offner, on our project "Studying Infall Towards 10 Class 0/I Protostars Using ALMA Data and FERIA" I worked on generating protostellar models using FERIA by Yoko Oya, comparing the chi2 of the model image cubes to ALMA data, and then analyzing the results.
A poster made at the end of the REU term, which goes over some of the methodology and an example result for Per-emb-14. Presented on July 31, 2023
Download PosterFor the 243rd AAS meeting in January 2024 in New Orleans, I presented preliminary results for all 10 sources. This was presented in the iPoster format used by AAS, which allowed me to include results from all sources without sacrificing space. Presented on January 11, 2024
Follow this link for a permanent souce for this poster.