Highly Collimated Jets and Wide-Angle Outflows in HH46/47: New Evidence from Spitzer IR Images

We present new details of the structure and morphology of the jets and outflows in HH46/47 as seen in Spitzer infrared images from IRAC and MIPS, reprocessed using the “HiRes” deconvolution technique. HiRes improves the visualization of spatial morphology by enhancing resolution (to sub-arcsec levels in IRAC bands) and removing the contaminating side lobes from bright sources. In addition to sharper views of previously reported bow shocks, we have detected: (i) the sharply-delineated cavity walls of the wide-angle biconical outflow, seen in scattered light on both sides of the protostar, (ii) several very narrow jet features at distances ∼400 AU to ∼0.1 pc from the star, and, (iii) compact emissions at MIPS 24 μm coincident with the jet heads, tracing the hottest atomic/ionic gas in the bow shocks. Together the IRAC and MIPS images provide a more complete picture of the bow shocks, tracing both the molecular and atomic/ionic gases, respectively. The narrow width and alignment of all jet-related features indicate a high degree of jet collimation and low divergence (width of ∼400 AU increasing by only a factor of 2.3 over 0.2pc). The morphology of this jet, bow shocks, wide angle outflows, and the fact that jet is non-precessing and episodic, constrain the mechanisms for producing the jet’s entrained molecular gas, and origins of the fast jet, and slower wide-angle outflow. Subject headings: ISM: jets and outflows — ISM: Herbig-Haro objects —stars: formation — ISM: individual (HH46/47)