Water distribution in shocked regions of the NGC1333-IRAS4A protostellar
  outflow
  We present the study of the H2O spatial distribution at two bright shocked
regions along IRAS4A, one of the strongest H2O emitters among the Class 0
outflows. We obtained Herschel-PACS maps of the IRAS4A outflow and HIFI
observations of two shocked positions. The largest HIFI beam of 38 arcsec at
557 GHz was mapped in several key water lines with different upper energy
levels, to reveal possible spatial variations of the line profiles. We detect
four H2O lines and CO (16-15) at the two selected positions. In addition,
transitions from related outflow and envelope tracers are detected. Different
gas components associated with the shock are identified in the H2O emission. In
particular, at the head of the red lobe of the outflow, two distinct gas
components with different excitation conditions are distinguished in the HIFI
emission maps: a compact component, detected in the ground-state water lines,
and a more extended one. Assuming that these two components correspond to two
different temperature components observed in previous H2O and CO studies, the
excitation analysis of the H2O emission suggests that the compact (about 3
arcsec) component is associated with a hot (T~1000 K) gas with densities
~(1-4)x10^5 cm^{-3}, whereas the extended one (10-17 arcsec) traces a warm
(T~300-500 K) and dense gas (~(3-5)x10^7 cm^{-3}). Finally, using the CO
(16-15) emission observed at R2, we estimate the H2O/H2 abundance of the warm
and hot components to be (7-10)x10^{-7} and (3-7)x10^{-5}. Our data allowed us,
for the first time, to resolve spatially the two temperature components
previously observed with HIFI and PACS. We propose that the compact hot
component may be associated with the jet that impacts the surrounding material,
whereas the warm, dense, and extended component originates from the compression
of the ambient gas by the propagating flow.
