Acceleration by Magnetic Mirrors and Alfven Waves in Molecular Outflows

Abstract

The configuration of the magnetic field associated with a protostar surrounded by a circumstellar disk is assumed to be a kind of magnetic mirror, which reflects the particles at its throat located nearby the disk midplane, and then extracts them out of the star and the disk. Turbulent Alfven waves are excited due to anisotropic temperature distribution caused by the existing magnetic field in the environment. Accelerated by turbulent Alfven waves, the particles coming out of the young stellar object and the circumstellar disk can reach the expected velocities around 300 km s^-1 at a typical distance 0.1 pc from the central star. The wave energy is converted from the thermal energy stored in the system consisting of the early stage star associated with the disk and their environment, and a small fraction of which is enough. The coefficient η, indicating the efficiency of converting thermal energy to wave energy, is equal to 10^-11.