Formation, orbital and thermal evolution, and survival of planetary-mass clumps in the early phase of circumstellar disk evolution

• Published in: arXiv.org
• Main Authors: Tsukamoto, Yusuke, Machida, Masahiro N, Inutsuka, Shuichiro
• Format: Paper Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Ithaca Cornell University Library, arXiv.org 10.09.2013
• Subjects: Accretion disks; Brown dwarf stars; Clumps; Computational fluid dynamics; Computer simulation; Fluid flow; Fragmentation; Hydrodynamics; Molecular clouds; Physics - Earth and Planetary Astrophysics; Physics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics; Planet formation; Planetary evolution; Protoplanets; Protostars; Simulation; Star formation; Survival; Thermal evolution
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.1307.6910

We report the results of our three-dimensional radiation hydrodynamics simulation of collapsing unmagnetized molecular cloud cores. We investigate the formation and evolution of the circumstellar disk and the clumps formed by disk fragmentation. Our simulation shows that disk fragmentation occurs in the early phase of circumstellar disk evolution and many clumps form. The clump can be represented by a polytrope sphere of index \(n \sim 3\) and \(n \gtrsim 4\) at central temperature \(T_c \lesssim100\) K and \(T_c \gtrsim 100\) K, respectively. We demonstrate, numerically and theoretically, that the maximum mass of the clump, beyond which it inevitably collapses, is \(\sim 0.03 M_{\odot}\). The entropy of the clump increases during its evolution, implying that evolution is chiefly determined by mass accretion from the disk rather than by radiative cooling. Although most of the clumps rapidly migrate inward and finally fall onto the protostar, a few clumps remain in the disk. The central density and temperature of the surviving clump rapidly increase and the clump undergoes a second collapse within 1000 - 2000 years after its formation. In our simulation, three second cores of masses \(0.2\msun\), \(0.15\msun\), and \(0.06\msun\) formed. These are protostars or brown dwarfs rather than protoplanets. For the clumps to survive as planetary-mass objects, the rapid mass accretion should be prevented by some mechanisms.