Illuminating the Complex Environment of Outbursting Protostars with SPHERE Scattered Light Observations

FU Ori (FUor) and EX Lup (EXor) objects represent a short-lived stage of protostellar evolution characterized by intense mass accretion causing extreme variability in the form of outbursts. It is likely such rapid accretion events constitute the means by which most newborn stars gain their initial mass. However, the mechanism(s) causing such intense outbursts are poorly understood due in large part to their level of difficulty to observe in detail. We present SPHERE (Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch) optical and near-IR scattered light observations of several nearby outbursting protostars which spatially resolve the circumstellar environment at radii > 10 au. These images reveal complex morphological features in the dust surrounding these young stars which likely hint at their highly variable origins.