English

The evolution of the $M_{\mathrm{d}}-M_{\star}$ and $\dot M-M_{\star}$ correlations traces protoplanetary disc dispersal

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics 2024-09-25 v1 Solar and Stellar Astrophysics

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 (MdMλm{M_d \propto M_*}^{\lambda_m}) and the accretion rate (M˙Mλacc\dot M \propto {M_*}^{\lambda_{acc}}). 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 λm\lambda_m and λacc\lambda_{acc} 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 Md(0)Mλm,0M_d(0) \propto {M_*}^{\lambda_{m, 0}} and M˙(0)Mλacc,0\dot M(0) \propto {M_*}^{\lambda_{acc, 0}} 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 (30\sim 30 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: 140\sim 140 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 MdMM_d - M_* correlation with respect to M˙M\dot M - M_*.

Keywords

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