Effect of Magnetic Braking on Circumstellar Disk Formation in a Strongly Magnetized Cloud

By Masahiro N. Machida, S. Inutsuka, Tomoaki Matsumoto. 2010

138 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Using resistive magnetohydrodynamics simulation, we consider circumstellar disk formation in a strongly magnetized cloud. As the initial state, an isolated cloud core embedded in a low-density interstellar medium with a uniform magnetic field was adopted. The cloud evolution was calculated until almost all gas inside the initial cloud fell onto either the circumstellar disk or a protostar, and a part of the gas was ejected into the interstellar medium by the protostellar outflow driven by the circumstellar disk. In the early main accretion phase, the disk size is limited to � 10 AU because the angular momentum of the circumstellar disk is effectively transferred by both magnetic braking and the protostellar outflow. In the later main accretion phase, however, the circumstellar disk grows rapidly and exceeds & 100 AU by the end of the main accretion phase. This rapid growth of the circumstellar disk is caused by depletion of the infalling envelope, while magnetic braking is effective when the infalling envelope is more massive than the circumstellar disk. The infalling envelope cannot brake the circumstellar disk when the latter is more massive than the former. In addition, the protostellar outflow weakens and disappears in the later main accretion phase, because the outflow is powered by gas accretion onto the circumstellar disk. Although the circumstellar disk formed in a magnetized cloud is considerably smaller than that in an unmagnetized cloud, a circumstellar disk exceeding 100 AU can form even in a strongly magnetized cloud.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6c0a35510c40603eae4c317aafe204ba5492a3c7

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

Citations in the corpus

Our astrochemical heritage (2012, background): “This has also been shown in simulations by Machida et al. (2011), who found rapid growth to ≥100 AU of the circumstellar disk when depletion of the infalling envelope is taken into account, and by Joos et al. (2012), who explored the case of magnetic fields non-aligned with the rotation axis and…”
RADIATION MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMIC SIMULATIONS OF PROTOSTELLAR COLLAPSE: PROTOSTELLAR CORE FORMATION (2012, methodology): “Ohmic dissipation redistributes sufficient magnetic flux outward from the centrally condensed high-density region and enables formation of circumstellar disks in the vicinity of protostars (Dapp & Basu 2010; Inutsuka et al. 2010; Machida et al. 2011; Machida & Matsumoto 2011).”
A millimeter Continuum Size–Luminosity Relationship for Protoplanetary Disks (2017, background): “Disk sizes reflect some convolution of the processes involved in formation (Galli et al. 2006; Mellon & Li 2008; Vorobyov 2009; Dapp & Basu 2010; Machida et al. 2011), evolution of angular momentum (e.g., Lynden-Bell & Pringle 1974; Hartmann et al. 1998), and, perhaps most importantly, the growth…”