Down the Tube: A 21st Century Study of a Unique Stellar Jet
Abstract
The symbiotic system MWC 560 has the only known spectroscopically observable stellar jet in which we are looking "down the tube" because the jet is oriented directly toward Earth. This orientation, when we take advantage of one of MWC 560's infrequent outbursts to obtain high-resolution UV spectra, offers a unique opportunity to get information about the temperatures, densities, and velocity structure of a stellar jet, probing structures on scales orders of magnitude smaller than can be resolved spatially in any other jet. MWC 560 is having one of the three brightest outbursts in its century-long photometric history. The only other high-resolution UV spectra of MWC 560 were obtained during its 1990 outburst by the IUE satellite. The IUE spectra revealed a rich spectrum of absorption features displaying complext blueshifted absorption up to -6000 km/s with short-timecale variations. These spectra supported a surge of stellar jet modeling. We will obtain UV spectra of MWC 560 using STIS, giving two orders of magnitude improvement over the IUE data in resolution and time sampling. The vastly improved quality of the STIS data will test and constrain the jet models which were based on the lower-resolution IUE data, and probe jet structure on small scales impossible to resolve spatially in any stellar jet by examining a number of features which were too faint and narrow to be used in the IUE data. Stellar jets are considered physically analogous enough that a detailed study of any jet is valuable and applicable to models of all jets from compact stellar remnants to QSOs. This new data set will support a new generation of jet modeling.
- Publication:
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HST Proposal
- Pub Date:
- March 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019hst..prop15700B