RADIO JETS AND DISKS IN THE INTERMEDIATE-MASS STAR-FORMING REGION NGC2071IR

Abstract

We report the results of simultaneous radio continuum and water maser observations toward the NGC 2071IR star-forming region, carried out with the VLA in its A configuration. We detect continuum emission toward the infrared sources IRS 1 and IRS 3 at 1.3 and 3.6 cm. In addition, a new continuum source, VLA 1, is also detected at both wavelengths, which is located between IRS 1 and IRS 3. IRS 1 breaks up into three continuum peaks (IRS 1E, 1C, and 1W), aligned in the east-west direction (P.A. = 100°). IRS 1 is the central source, while the sources E and W seem to be condensations ejected by IRS 1. In the same way, IRS 3 is also forming a triple system (IRS 3N, 3C and 3S), which is elongated in the northeast-southwest direction and the condensations, IRS 3N and IRS 3S, are symmetrically located along the major axis. Based on the morphology and the continuum emission, we suggest that both IRS 1 and IRS 3 are radio jets, which have ejected condensations into the interstellar medium. Moreover, IRS 1 and IRS 3 seem to be the driving sources of the large-scale outflows observed in H2 and CO, respectively. In addition, we also detected water emission toward the systems IRS 1, IRS 3, and the new source VLA 1. Based on the spatial-kinematic distribution of the water masers, we find evidence that the water masers are tracing part of circumstellar disks around IRS 1C and IRS 3C. Moreover, we estimate that the sources IRS 1C and IRS 3C have central masses of ~5 and ~1 M ☉, respectively. We conclude that the radio continuum and water maser emission are tracing disk-YSO-outflow systems toward IRS 1 and IRS 3, which are low- and intermediate-mass young stellar objects, respectively.