A Search for Dust in the Outflow of the HH 212 Class 0 Protostellar System

Abstract Perhaps the most visually striking phenomenon during star formation is the ejection of material along the direction of the protostar’s rotational axis. Observed in the form of molecular outflows and/or atomic jets, these features carry away mass, energy, and angular momentum from the system. Given the known dust content of protoplanetary disks, and the energetics of outflows, it has been suggested that it should be possible to lift dust from disks via winds, yet limited observational evidence has been presented in the literature. Any detection of dust within protostellar outflows not only puts constraints on the dust content in outflows, but if a sufficient amount of dust can be removed from the system, the mass budget for planet formation could also be affected. We present reimaging of archival, multifrequency dust continuum observations taken with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) toward the HH 212 protostellar system. We detect an extension in the dust emission, and, using multifrequency data in Bands 7 and 9, we estimate the spectral index of the emitting dust and the dust mass in the wind-launching region. We find a small but still significant amount of dust mass coincident with the molecular outflow cavity. This finding is assessed in relation to the hypothesis that the outflow could be capable of transporting dust away from the HH 212 protoplanetary disk.