Global Models for the Evolution of Embedded, Accreting Protostellar Disks

By K. Kratter, C. Matzner, Mark R. Krumholz. 2007

152 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Most analytic work to date on protostellar disks has focused on those in isolation from their environments. However, observations are now beginning to probe the earliest, most embedded phases of star formation, during which disks are rapidly accreting from their parent cores and cannot be modeled in isolation. We present a simple, one-zone model of protostellar accretion disks with high-mass infall rates. Our model combines a self-consistent calculation of disk temperatures with an approximate treatment of angular momentum transport via two mechanisms. We use this model to survey the properties of protostellar disks across a wide range of stellar masses and evolutionary times and make predictions for disks’ masses, sizes, spiral structure, and fragmentation that will be directly testable by future large-scale surveys of deeply embedded disks. We define a dimensionless accretion-rotation parameter that, in conjunction with the disk’s temperature, controls the disk evolution. We track the dominant mode of angular momentum transport and demonstrate that for stars with final masses greater than roughly one solar mass, gravitational instabilities are the most important mechanism as most of the mass accumulates. We predict that binary formation through disk fission, fragmentation of the disk into small objects, and spiral arm strength all increase in importance to higher stellar masses.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Materials Chemistry

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/79ead10865c7cb1eae204be4bc999646b4252122

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Citations in the corpus

The Close Binary Fraction of Solar-type Stars Is Strongly Anticorrelated with Metallicity (2018, background): “We begin with an expression for the disk midplane equilibrium temperature (see Kratter et al. 2008, 2010b), s t t = + +⎜ ⎟ ⎛ ⎝ ⎞ ⎠ ( )T F F 3 8 1 2 , 64 visc irrad where p = W˙ ( )F M3 4 , 7visc 2 * *s m p = ⎜ ⎟ ⎡ ⎣ ⎢⎢ ⎛ ⎝⎜ ⎞ ⎠⎟ ⎛ ⎝ ⎞ ⎠ ⎤ ⎦ ⎥⎥ ( )F k G M L r4 1 , 8birrad 3 1 7 2 7 3 7 4 * * = ˙ (…”
ON THE ROLE OF DISKS IN THE FORMATION OF STELLAR SYSTEMS: A NUMERICAL PARAMETER STUDY OF RAPID ACCRETION (2009, background): “Our focus is on the dynamics of disks around young, rapidly accretings protostars, for which self-gravity is the key ingredient (Lin & Pringle 1987; Gammie 2001; Kratter et al. 2008).”
THE RUNTS OF THE LITTER: WHY PLANETS FORMED THROUGH GRAVITATIONAL INSTABILITY CAN ONLY BE FAILED BINARY STARS (2009, methodology): “We distinguish between stars 2 October 2009, http://exoplanet.eu, compiled by Jean Schneider of different masses because disk fragmentation becomes more likely for higher mass stars (Kratter et al. 2008).”
FORMATION OF KUIPER BELT BINARIES BY GRAVITATIONAL COLLAPSE (2010, methodology): “1; Nesvorný 2008).3 Our model for binary KBO formation is similar to that of binary stars from the collapse of a rotating molecular cloud core (Kratter et al. 2008), and more specifically to binary star formation in fragmenting disks around black holes (e.g., Alexander et al. 2008).”
THE BURST MODE OF ACCRETION AND DISK FRAGMENTATION IN THE EARLY EMBEDDED STAGES OF STAR FORMATION (2010, background): “The amount of rotation in the natal cloud core should be sufficiently large in order to form extended and massive protostellar disks (Vorobyov & Basu 2006; Kratter et al. 2008; Vorobyov 2009b; Rice at al.”
Gravitational Instabilities in Circumstellar Disks (2016, background): “Finally, Kratter et al. (2008), who explored the evolution of higher mass stars, found that more massive stars often evolve from the self-luminous global mode regime at early times into the irradiated, massive, and fragmenting regime at late times.”
CHALLENGES IN FORMING PLANETS BY GRAVITATIONAL INSTABILITY: DISK IRRADIATION AND CLUMP MIGRATION, ACCRETION, AND TIDAL DESTRUCTION (2011, background): “Alternatively, GI-induced fragmentation has been proposed to explain multiple star systems (Kratter et al. 2008, 2010a,b; Offner et al. 2010; Hayfield et al. 2011).”
THE FORMATION MECHANISM OF GAS GIANTS ON WIDE ORBITS (2009, unknown): “The medium-mass nebulae allow us to verify that our calculations of planet formation efficiency are consistent with previous studies of both core accretion and gravitational instability (e.g. Laughlin et al. 2004; Kenyon & Bromley 2008; Kratter et al. 2008; Stamatellos & Whitworth 2009).”
THE FORMATION OF LOW-MASS BINARY STAR SYSTEMS VIA TURBULENT FRAGMENTATION (2010, methodology): “Following Kratter et al. (2008), we define the ratio of the disk mass to total system mass as µ = Md M∗d .”
THE EFFECTS OF RADIATIVE TRANSFER ON LOW-MASS STAR FORMATION (2009, background): “Cold protostellar disks more readily develop spiral structure and become Toomre unstable, influencing protostellar accretion and driving fragmentation (Kratter et al. 2008).”
On the diversity and statistical properties of protostellar discs (2018, background): “Rapid accretion can be important for driving fragmentation (Bonnell 1994; Bonnell & Bate 1994; Hennebelle et al. 2004; Kratter et al. 2008, 2010), adding another complication.”
THREE-DIMENSIONAL SIMULATION OF MASSIVE STAR FORMATION IN THE DISK ACCRETION SCENARIO (2011, result): “For a comparison of these outcomes with previous semi-analytic predictions including disk fragmentation, please see also Kratter & Matzner (2006); Kratter et al. (2008).”