The evolution of the $M_{\mathrm{d}}-M_{\star}$ and $\dot M-M_{\star}$ correlations traces protoplanetary disc dispersal
Abstract
(Abridged) Observational surveys of entire star-forming regions have provided evidence of power-law correlations between the disc properties and the stellar mass, especially the disc mass () and the accretion rate (). Whether the secular disc evolution affects said correlations is still debated: while the purely viscous scenario has been probed, other mechanisms could impact differently. We study the evolution of the slopes and in the wind-driven and hybrid case and compare it to the viscous prediction, using a combination of analytical calculations and numerical simulations (performed with the 1D population synthesis code Diskpop, that we also present and release). Assuming and as initial conditions, we find that viscous and hybrid accretion preserve the shape of the correlations and evolve their slope; on the other hand, MHD winds change the shape of the correlations, bending them according to the scaling of the accretion timescale with the stellar mass. We also show how a spread in the initial conditions conceals this behaviour. We then analyse the impact of disc dispersal, and find that the currently available sample sizes ( discs at 5 Myr) introduce stochastic oscillations in the slopes evolution, which dominate over the physical signatures. Increasing the sample size could mitigate this issue: discs at 5 Myr, corresponding to the complete Upper Sco sample, would give small enough error bars to use the evolution of the slopes as a proxy for the driving mechanism of disc evolution. Finally, we discuss how the observational claim of steepening slopes necessarily leads to an initially steeper correlation with respect to .
Cite
@article{arxiv.2407.21101,
title = {The evolution of the $M_{\mathrm{d}}-M_{\star}$ and $\dot M-M_{\star}$ correlations traces protoplanetary disc dispersal},
author = {Alice Somigliana and Leonardo Testi and Giovanni Rosotti and Claudia Toci and Giuseppe Lodato and Rossella Anania and Benoît Tabone and Marco Tazzari and Ralf Klessen and Ugo Lebreuilly and Patrick Hennebelle and Sergio Molinari},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2407.21101},
year = {2024}
}
Comments
14 pages, 5 figures and 3 tables (plus Appendix). Accepted for publication in A&A. Includes Diskpop and popcorn software release