English

Three-Dimensional Radiation Transfer in Young Stellar Objects

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics 2015-06-16 v1 Astrophysics of Galaxies

Abstract

We have updated our publicly available dust radiative transfer code (HOCHUNK3D) to include new emission processes and various 3-D geometries appropriate for forming stars. The 3-D geometries include warps and spirals in disks, accretion hotspots on the central star, fractal clumping density enhancements, and misaligned inner disks. Additional axisymmetric (2-D) features include gaps in disks and envelopes, "puffed-up inner rims" in disks, multiple bipolar cavity walls, and iteration of disk vertical structure assuming hydrostatic equilibrium. We include the option for simple power-law envelope geometry, which combined with fractal clumping, and bipolar cavities, can be used to model evolved stars as well as protostars. We include non-thermal emission from PAHs and very small grains, and external illumination from the interstellar radiation field. The grid structure was modified to allow multiple dust species in each cell; based on this, a simple prescription is implemented to model dust stratification. We describe these features in detail, and show example calculations of each. Some of the more interesting results include the following: 1) Outflow cavities may be more clumpy than infalling envelopes. 2) PAH emission in high-mass stars may be a better indicator of evolutionary stage than the broadband SED slope; and related to this, 3) externally illuminated clumps and high-mass stars in optically thin clouds can masquerade as YSOs. 4) Our hydrostatic equilibrium models suggest that dust settling is likely ubiquitous in T Tauri disks, in agreement with previous observations.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1307.0561,
  title  = {Three-Dimensional Radiation Transfer in Young Stellar Objects},
  author = {B. A. Whitney and T. P. Robitaille and J. E. Bjorkman and R. Dong and M. J. Wolff and K. Wood and J. Honor},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1307.0561},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

44 pages, 31 figures, 1 table, accepted for publication in ApJS

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