CO line formation in accelerated and constant velocity bipolar outflows is investigated. Depending on the view angle and the flow's opening angle, four different classes of characteristic line profiles, velocity versus position maps, and integrated intensity maps can be distinguished. The models are used to test the most common method for deriving parameters of the flow from observed CO maps, and this method is found to be inaccurate, mainly because in most cases it underestimates both the CO column density and the flow's characteristic time scale. Some suggestions for improved accuracy follow.
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Cabrit et al. (1986) studied this question.