WATER MASERS FROM THE PROTOSTELLAR DISK AND OUTFLOW IN THE NGC 1333 IRAS 4 REGION

NGC 1333 is a nearby star forming region, and IRAS 4A and IRAS 4BI are low-mass Class 0 protostars. IRAS 4A is a protobinary system. The NGC 1333 IRAS 4 region was observed in the 22 GHz water maser with a high resolution (0.08") using the Very Large Array. Two groups of masers were detected: one near A2 and the other near BI. Most of the masers associated with A2 are located very close (< 100 AU) to the radio continuum source. They may be associated with the circumstellar disk. Since no maser was detected near AI, the A2 disk is relatively more active than the Al disk. Most of the masers in the BI region are distributed along a straight line, and they are probably related with the outflow. As in many other water maser sources, the IRAS 4 water masers seem to trace selectively either the disk or the outflow. Considering the outflow lifetimes, the disk-outflow dichotomy is probably unrelated with the evolutionary stage of protostars. A possible explanation may be that both the outflow-maser and the disk-maser are rare phenomena and that detecting both kinds of maser around a single protostar may be even rarer.