Origin of Bipolar Flows

The strong wind blowing from young stars is not completely understood. One idea is that it is caused by the matter drawing a magnetic field inward as it falls into the accretion disk. The escaping wind is partially blocked by the accretion disk around the equator of the forming star and so escapes along the polar axis, thus producing bipolar outflows from the young star.

However, this simple picture cannot explain the evidence for the rather narrow width of the outflow observed in some cases. Presumably the full mechanism is more complex, perhaps involving the effect of magnetic fields to focus the ejected material.