A RADIO CANDIDATE FOR THE EXCITING SOURCE OF THE L1287 BIPOLAR OUTFLOW

The FU Orionis phenomenon has been proposed to account for the bipolar molecular outflows commonly observed in star-forming regions. Perhaps the best case in support of this hypothesis is the L1287 outflow, recently suggested to be excited by a visible binary FU Ori system (RNO 1B/1C). However, a different object has also been proposed to excite the powerful bipolar molecular outflow in L1287: a yet undetected deeply embedded source, inferred from polarimetric studies of the region and displaced several arcseconds from the FU Ori system. Sensitive 3.6 cm Very Large Array observations of the region reveal the presence of a radio continuum source coincident within 1'' with the predicted position of the embedded source and with the catalog position of IRAS 00338+6312. This radio continuum source has positive spectral index and presents evidence of elongation approximately along the axis of the bipolar outflow. These two properties are characteristic of other thermal radio jets known to be associated with the exciting source of bipolar outflows. We propose that this radio continuum source is the most plausible candidate to excite the L1287 outflow and that the relation of the visible FU Ori system with the outflow is unclear.