Accretion and outflows in young stars with CUBES

Abstract

The science case on studies of accretion and outflows in low-mass (<1.5M_{odot }) young stellar objects (YSOs) with the new CUBES instrument is presented. We show the need for a high-sensitivity, near-ultraviolet (NUV) spectrograph like CUBES, with a resolving power at least four times that of X-Shooter and combined with UVES via a fibrelink for simultaneous observations. Simulations with the CUBES exposure time calculator and the end-to-end software show that a significant gain in signal-to-noise can be achieved compared to current instruments, for both the spectral continuum and emission lines, including for relatively embedded YSOs. Our simulations also show that the low-resolution mode of CUBES will be able to observe much fainter YSOs (V sim22 mag) in the NUV than we can today, allowing us extend studies to YSOs with background-limited magnitudes. The performance of CUBES in terms of sensitivity in the NUV will provide important new insights into the evolution of circumstellar disks, by studying the accretion, jets/winds and photo-evaporation processes, down to the low-mass brown dwarf regime. CUBES will also open-up new science as it will be able to observe targets that are several magnitudes fainter than those reachable with current instruments, facilitating studies of YSOs at distances of sim kpc scale. This means a step-change in the field of low-mass star formation, as it will be possible to expand the science case from relatively local star-forming regions to a large swathe of distances within the Milky Way.