Misaligned twin molecular outflows from the class 0 protostellar binary system VLA 1623A unveiled by ALMA

We present the results of ALMA observations toward the low-mass Class 0 binary system VLA 1623Aab in the Ophiuchus molecular cloud in ¹²CO, ¹³CO, and C¹⁸O(2–1) lines. Our ¹²CO (J = 2–1) data reveal that the VLA 1623 outflow consists of twin spatially overlapped outflows/jets. The redshifted northwestern jet exhibits three cycles of wiggle with a spatial period of 1360 ± 10 au, corresponding to a time period of 180 yr. The wiggle-like structure is also found in the position–velocity (PV) diagram, showing an amplitude in the velocity of about 0.9 km s⁻¹. Both the period and velocity amplitude of the wiggle are roughly consistent with those expected from the binary parameters, i.e., the orbital period (460 ± 20 yr) and the Keplerian velocity (2.2 km s⁻¹). Our ¹³CO and C¹⁸O images show a dense gas nature in the two centimeter/millimeter sources, VLA 1623B and W, and its relation to the outflows, and strongly support the previous interpretation that both are shocked cloudlets. The driving sources of the twin molecular outflows are, therefore, likely to be the VLA 1623Aab binary. The outflow axes of the two molecular outflows are estimated to be inclined by 70° to each other across the plane of sky, implying that protostellar disks are also misaligned by 70◦. Such nature together with a small binary separation of 34 au in one of the youngest protobinary systems seems difficult to explain by disk fragmentation in quiescent environments. Other effects such as turbulence probably play roles.