Magnetogravitationally regulated streamer accretion onto a class 0 protostellar system
- Bo Huang
- Josep M. Girart
- Ian W. Stephens
- Tom Megeath
- Valentin J. M. Le Gouellec
- Nadia M. Murillo
- Paulo Cortés
- Manuel Fernández-López
- Zhi-Yun Li
- Leslie W. Looney
- J. A. López-Vázquez
- Jaime E. Pineda
- Álvaro Sánchez-Monge
- Patricio Sanhueza
- Sarah Sadavoy
- Qizhou Zhang
- Charles L. H. Hull
- Nicole Karnath
- Enwei Liang
- Philip C. Myers
2026-05-22
How do magnetic fields shape the way young stars gather gas from their birth clouds? Using high-resolution Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array observations of a young triple protostellar system HOPS-182, we identify an elongated stream of gas, or accretion streamer, that extends over several thousand astronomical units (1 astronomical unit is the Earth-Sun distance) and carries a substantial flow of material toward the system. The gas speeds along this filament increase toward the star in a way consistent with gravitational free fall, while the streamer’s shape closely follows the magnetic field threading the region. By comparing the strengths of gravity and magnetic tension and measuring how the gas rotates compared with the local magnetic field, we show that the field is strong enough to help confine and guide the infalling gas and efficiently remove the angular momentum. These results suggest that a substantial fraction of the material falling onto young protostellar systems can be funneled through elongated, magnetically structured accretion streamers.