An Episodic Wide-angle Outflow in HH 46/47

During star formation, the accretion disk drives fast MHD winds, which usually contain two components, a collimated jet and a radially distributed wide-angle wind. These winds entrain the surrounding ambient gas producing molecular outflows. We report a recent observation of 12CO (2-1) emission of the HH 46/47 molecular outflow by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, in which we identify multiple wide-angle outflowing shell structures in both the blueshifted and redshifted outflow lobes. These shells are highly coherent in position-position-velocity space, extending to 40-50 km s−1 in velocity and 104 au in space, with well-defined morphology and kinematics. We suggest these outflowing shells are the result of the entrainment of ambient gas by a series of outbursts from an intermittent wide-angle wind. Episodic outbursts in collimated jets are commonly observed, yet detection of a similar behavior in wide-angle winds has been elusive. Here we show clear evidence that the wide-angle component of the HH 46/47 protostellar outflows experiences variability similar to that seen in the collimated component.