The Rotation Dip in the Envelope–Disk Transition of HH 111: Evidence for Magnetic Braking

Abstract Magnetic braking can drive angular momentum loss in star formation and influence disk evolution. A previous study of HH 111 VLA 1 suggested a decrease in rotation velocity in a region between the infalling envelope and rotating disk. Using Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array C 18 O ( J = 2–1) data, we analyzed the gas motion within 6000 au and found clear deviations from the simplest expectations of freefall toward the central star with conserved angular momentum in the transition region between the envelope and disk (from ∼5200 to 160 au). The region can be further divided into three zones: (1) outer region with a significant decrease in infall velocity, dropping to approximately 60% of the freefall velocity and 70% of conservation of angular momentum and energy; (2) middle region with a sharp drop in angular momentum and thus rotation velocity and an increase in infall velocity; and (3) inner region with rotation velocity increasing inward to connect to that of the Keplerian disk and infall velocity decreasing to zero. Comparison with nonideal MHD simulations suggests that the reduced infall velocity in the outer region can be due to magnetic tension by the pinched magnetic field lines, the sharp drop of angular momentum in the middle region can be due to magnetic braking as the field lines pileup, and the rapid increase in rotation velocity in the inner region might result from weaker magnetic braking due to ambipolar diffusion of the field lines. The resulting dip in the rotation profile supports magnetic braking.