Abstract

Understanding Accretion in the Youngest Protostars with MIRI Spectroscopy

Will Fischer (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)

Deborah Padgett (GSFC); Karl Stapelfeldt (JPL); Marta Sewilo (GSFC); John Kwan (UMass); Suzan Edwards (Smith College); Bill Vacca (SOFIA/USRA)

With our published WISE color criteria, we have identified deeply embedded Class 0 protostar candidates in regions not imaged by Spitzer/MIPS. Follow-up spectroscopy of these and other Class 0 sources with JWST's MIRI instrument has the potential to detect atomic hydrogen lines, allowing confirmation of their protostellar nature and determination of temperatures, densities, and mass accretion rates. This will address the long-standing question of whether the youngest protostars accrete most of their mass steadily or stochastically, in episodic outbursts. I will highlight representative WISE Class 0 candidates and present radiative transfer models that we developed to interpret line ratios at MIRI wavelengths. I will also discuss early successes of the radiative transfer models in interpreting near-IR spectra of T Tauri stars and a SOFIA mid-IR spectrum of a nova.

Talk