Forbidden Line Diagnostics of Disk Winds in YSOs

The last decade of work on bipolar molecular outflows and optical jets from the vicinity of young stellar objects (≡ YSOs) has established that most, if not all stars go through an outflow phase during their formation. CO outflows are the earliest signposts of star formation and may continue to be active for up to 2 × 105 yrs, (see Parker, Padman, and Scott 1991). This time scale is also approximately the free-fall time for the gaseous cores in which stars form