This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
Drs. Peter Hoffner and Michelle Cheech-Eakman of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology will undertake an observational study of stellar winds, jets, and molecular outflows in massive stars. Astronomers have long known that stars with masses greater than 8 solar masses lose material during most, if not all, of their lives. This mass loss is particularly important during the protostar phase, when the stars are being formed. This research team will obtain imaging and spectroscopy at several wavelengths to increase the available data about flows from massive young stars, to determine the physical process which launch and drive the outflows, and to establish an evolutionary sequence for massive protostars based on the properties of the flows.
This project is expected to have a broad impact for the study of jets and flows in many different contexts, including the formation of low-mass stars and planets, as well as the jets seen in active galactic nuclei. Data products from this project may also guide future work with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array in Chile and the Expanded Very Large Array in New Mexico. The research team will also include two graduate students and several undergraduate students. The project's techniques and results will be incorporated into astrophysics courses at New Mexico Tech.
