Shocks and Photoionization of the Inner 650 au Jet of the Interacting Binary Star R Aquarii from Multiwavelength Hubble Space Telescope Observations

Abstract

Astrophysical jets are present in a range of environments, including young stellar objects, X-ray binaries, and active galactic nuclei, but their formation is still not fully understood. As one of the nearest symbiotic binary stars, R Aquarii (D ∼ 220 pc) offers a unique opportunity to study the inner region within ∼600 au of the jet source, which is particularly crucial to our understanding of nonrelativistic jet formation and origin. We present high-angular resolution UV and optical imaging from the Hubble Space Telescope in six emission-line regions of the inner jet. Using these observations to obtain a range of representative line ratios for our system and kinematic data derived from a comparison with previous studies, we model the shocked gas in order to determine the relative roles of shock heating and photoionization in the R Aquarii system. We find that our shock models suggest that a nonzero magnetic field is needed to describe the measured line ratios. We also find that the Mg ii λλ2795,2802 intensities are overpredicted by our models for most of the jet regions, perhaps because of depletion onto grains or to opacity in these resonance lines.