Icy Origins of Organic Molecules Unveiled by JWST

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The primary goals of this research program is to measure the ice abundance in four young protostars and test chemical models with radiative transfer calculations, using JWST data. I have been leading the collaboration to develop the method of data reduction and measuring ice column density from its absorption feature. We published the first identification of ice features as well as jet and outflow characterization on the Astrophysical Journal Letter (Yang et al. 2022b). In this article, we presented the first JWST spectrum of a young protostar, identifying both commonly known ice feature as well as the features that could be due to organic molecules, such as ethanol and acetaldehyde. We also demonstrate the unique capability of JWST spectroscopic data on not only ice measurements but also characterizing outflows and jets in young protostars, where such observations were challenging to perform due to high extinction. Moreover, there are a number of projects underway in this project. The detailed ice analysis is led by Dr. J. Kim (KASI) and Mr. C.-H. Kim (SNU) with myself as the main mentor. I also started collaborations with Dr. Salyk (Vasser) and Dr. Okoda (RIKEN) to expand the breath of this research program.