2002A&A...393.1035N

As part of a 1-2.5µm spectroscopic survey of jets and molecular outflows, we present the spectra of three Herbig Haro chains (HH 111, HH 240/241, HH 120) characterized by strong emission from several FeII transitions originating from the first 13 fine structure levels. Such emission is correlated with optical SII emission and appears to decrease moving away from the driving source. From the analysis of the FeII lines we have derived electron densities values in the range 3x10³-2x10⁴cm^–3, which are systematically larger than those inferred from optical SII line ratios. We suggest that FeII lines, having critical densities higher than the optical SII transitions, trace either regions of the post-shock cooling layers with higher compression, or a section of the jet axis at a higher degree of ionization. Strong H₂ emission lines are also detected along the three flows and their analysis indicates that a combination of different shocks can be responsible for their excitation in the different objects. Consequently the FeII line emission, which requires the presence of fast dissociative shocks, is completely independent from the excitation mechanism giving rise to the molecular emission. In addition to the FeII and H₂ lines, emission from other species such as CI, SII, NI as well as recombination lines from the Paschen series are detected and have been used as a reference to infer the gas-phase iron abundance in the observed HH objects. We estimate a grain destruction efficiency of about 30-60%: the highest value is found for HH 240A, which also shows the highest degree of excitation among the observed objects.