Numerical simulations of protostellar jets with nonequilibrium cooling. I - Method and two-dimensional results. II - Models of pulsed jets

Abstract

In a series of three papers, multidimensional time-dependent numerical simulations of the propagation of protostellar jets into both uniform and plane stratified ambient media are presented. For the first time these simulations combine a nonequilibrium treatment of optically thin radiative cooling with time-dependent hydrodynamics. Both two- and three-dimensional models are presented; synthetic emission maps and position velocity diagrams are constructed in the latter case for direct comparison to observations. This first paper concentrates on a description of the numerical algorithms needed to solve the coupled time-dependent hydrodynamics and nonequilibrium rate equation. A test problem based on the overstability of radiative shocks is detailed