TRANSVERSE VELOCITY SHIFTS IN PROTOSTELLAR JETS: ROTATION OR VELOCITY ASYMMETRIES?

Observations of several protostellar jets show systematic differences in radial velocity transverse to the jet propagation direction that have been interpreted as evidence of rotation in the jets. In this paper we discuss the origin of these velocity shifts, and show that they could originate from rotation in the flow, or from side-to-side asymmetries in the shock velocity, which could be due to asymmetries in the jet ejection velocity/density or in the ambient medium. For typical poloidal jet velocities (∼100–200 km s−1), an asymmetry ≳10% can produce velocity shifts comparable to those observed. We also present three-dimensional numerical simulations of rotating, precessing, and asymmetric jets, and show that, even though for a given jet there is a clear degeneracy between these effects, a statistical analysis of jets with different inclination angles can help to distinguish between the alternative origins of transverse velocity shifts (TVSs). Our analysis indicates that side-to-side velocitiy asymmetries could represent an important contribution to TVSs, being the most important contributor for large jet inclination angles (with respect the the plane of the sky), and cannot be neglected when interpreting the observations.