Properties of Knots in Cooling Stellar Jets

Modelling the formation of the maximal emission regions in Herbig-Haro flows, the so-called ‘knots,’ remains a main challenge in the investigation of the YSO's outflows. Recent HST images of optical regions reveal their wide morphological variety. Knotty structures and arc-like regions coexist, suggesting that several mechanisms could be responsible for the global scenario. Arc-like emissions are probably due to other mini-working surfaces or non-axially symmetric interaction of the kinking jet matter with the external medium, while knots seen in [SII] are mostly axially symmetric objects and may have a different origin. In this paper we show that a pattern of regularly spaced, knotty emission regions forms in stationary jets, with emissivity and kinematic features consistent with observations. To this purpose, numerical simulations of non-equilibrium, radiative, hydrodynamical jets in axial symmetric geometry have been performed.