THREE-DIMENSIONAL SIMULATION OF MASSIVE STAR FORMATION IN THE DISK ACCRETION SCENARIO

By R. Kuiper, H. Klahr, H. Beuther, Th. Henning. 2011

150 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The most massive stars can form via standard disk accretion—despite the radiation pressure generated—due to the fact that the massive accretion disk yields a strong anisotropy in the radiation field, releasing most of the radiation pressure perpendicular to the disk accretion flow. Here, we analyze the self-gravity of the forming circumstellar disk as the potential major driver of the angular momentum transport in the massive disks responsible for the high accretion rates needed for the formation of massive stars. For this purpose, we perform self-gravity radiation hydrodynamic simulations of the collapse of massive pre-stellar cores. The formation and evolution of the resulting circumstellar disk is investigated in (1) axially symmetric simulations using an α-shear-viscosity prescription and (2) a three-dimensional simulation in which the angular momentum transport is provided self-consistently by developing gravitational torques in the self-gravitating accretion disk. The simulation series of different strengths of the α viscosity shows that the accretion history of the forming star is mostly independent of the α-viscosity parameter. The accretion history of the three-dimensional run driven by self-gravity is more time dependent than the viscous disk evolution in axial symmetry. The mean accretion rate, i.e., the stellar mass growth rate, is nearly identical to the α-viscosity models. We conclude that the development of gravitational torques in self-gravitating disks around forming massive stars provides a self-consistent mechanism to efficiently transport angular momentum to outer disk radii. The formation of the most massive stars can therefore be understood in the standard accretion disk scenario.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/60df50f84c939ed8addaf54c9aba4b6907bfaa10

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. Ralf Klessen
2. S. Glover
3. Volker Bromm
4. A. Ferrara
5. Thomas Greif
6. Christoph Federrath
7. A. Stacy
8. Tom Abel

Citations in the corpus

• FORMATION OF MASSIVE PRIMORDIAL STARS: INTERMITTENT UV FEEDBACK WITH EPISODIC MASS ACCRETION (2015, methodology): “As in Kuiper et al. (2011), we solve the above equations in spherical coordinates.”
• Titans of the early Universe: The Prato statement on the origin of the first supermassive black holes (2018, result): “This is in line with results from radiation hydrodynamic simulations of present-day star formation (see, e.g., Krumholz et al. 2009; Peters et al. 2010, 2011; Kuiper et al. 2011).”
• ATLASGAL — towards a complete sample of massive star forming clumps ⋆ (2014, background): “This problem can be overcome through accretion via a disc (e.g. Kuiper et al. 2011); however, the mechanism by which this happens is still an open question.”
• Disk-mediated accretion burst in a high-mass young stellar object (2016, background): “Indeed, several radiation hydrodynamic simulations predict the onset of accretion variability in high-mass star formation (8; 9; 11).”
• COLLAPSE OF MASSIVE MAGNETIZED DENSE CORES USING RADIATION MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMICS: EARLY FRAGMENTATION INHIBITION (2011, background): “To reach the final stellar mass, the subsequent evolution of the forming protostars can then follow a disk accretion scenario (Kuiper et al. 2011; Seifried et al. 2011).”
• Star Formation in the Milky Way and Nearby Galaxies (2012, background): “…a serious issue for the formation of massive stars in spherical geometries, but more realistic, aspherical simulations show that the radiation is channeled out along the rotation axis, allowing continued accretion through a disk (Yorke & Sonnhalter 2002; Krumholz et al. 2009a; Kuiper et al. 2011).”
• The First Stars: Mass Growth Under Protostellar Feedback (2011, background): “For instance, numerical studies by Krumholz et al. (2009) and Kuiper et al. (2011) both find that strong feedback from radiation pressure will not halt mass flow through the stellar disk before the star has reached & 10 M⊙.”
• Physical Processes in the Interstellar Medium (2014, background): “Flows of ionized gas may be important very close to young clusters and may terminate star formation locally (for the difference between two- and three-dimensional simulations, see Yorke & Sonnhalter, 2002; Krumholz et al., 2007a, 2009; Peters et al., 2010b, 2011; Kuiper et al., 2011).”