Related papers: Circumstellar Disk Evolution: Constraining Theorie…
Extensive photometric stellar surveys show that many main sequence stars show emission at infrared and longer wavelengths that is in excess of the stellar photosphere; this emission is thought to arise from circumstellar dust. The presence…
The imaging of disks around young stars presents extreme challenges in high dynamic range, angular resolution, and sensitivity. Recent instrumental advances have met these challenges admirably, leading to a marked increase in imaging…
The star formation process in molecular clouds usually leads to the formation of multiple stellar systems, mostly binaries. Remaining disks around those stars may be located around individual stars (circumstellar disks) or around the entire…
(abridged) Thus far our impressions regarding the evolutionary time scales for young circumstellar disks have been based on small number statistics. Over the past decade, however, in addition to precision study of individual star/disk…
Protoplanetary disks are thought to be the birth places of planetary systems. The formation and the subsequent evolution of protoplanetary disks are regulated by the star formation process, which begins with the collapse of a cloud core to…
Dust constitutes only about one percent of the mass of circumstellar disks, yet it is of crucial importance for the modeling of planet formation, disk chemistry, radiative transfer and observations. The initial growth of dust from…
Protoplanetary disks are quasi-steady structures whose evolution and dispersal determine the environment for planet formation. I review the theory of protoplanetary disk evolution and its connection to observations. Substantial progress has…
Using radiation hydrodynamics simulations, we explore the evolution of circumplanetary disks around wide-orbit proto-gas giants. At large distances from the star (~100 AU), gravitational instability followed by disk fragmentation can form…
Our understanding of protoplanetary disks has greatly improved over the last decade due to a wealth of data from new facilities. Unbiased dust surveys with Spitzer leave us with good constraints on the dust dispersal timescale of small…
This review covers the properties of disks around pre-main--sequence stars. It is at this time in the evolution that planets form, and it is important to understand the properties of these disks to understand planet formation. I discuss…
It has been suggested that circumstellar disks evolve from dense, actively accreting structures to low-mass, replenished remnants. During this transition, grains may assemble into planetesimals, or the disk may be cleared by newborn…
We discuss recent observations of stars located close to the symmetry plane of the Milky Way, and examine them in the context of theories of Galaxy formation and evolution. The kinematics, ages, and compositions of thin disk stars in the…
Flattened, rotating disks of cool dust and gas extending for tens to hundreds of AU are found around almost all low mass stars shortly after their birth. These disks generally persist for several Myr, during which time some material…
The formation of a binary system surrounded by disks is the most common outcome of stellar formation. Hence studying and understanding the formation and the evolution of binary systems and associated disks is a cornerstone of star formation…
The formation and evolution of a circumstellar disk in magnetized cloud cores is investigated from prestellar core stage until sim 10^4 yr after protostar formation. In the circumstellar disk, fragmentation first occurs due to gravitational…
The recent detection of planets around very low mass stars raises the question of the formation, composition and potential habitability of these objects. We use planetary system formation models to infer the properties, in particular their…
The chemical environment in circumstellar discs is a unique diagnostic of the thermal, physical and chemical environment. In this paper we examine the structure of star formation regions giving rise to low mass stars, and the chemical…
Circumstellar debris disks are the extrasolar analogues of the asteroid belt and the Kuiper belt. They consist of comets and leftover planetesimals that continuously collide and produce circumstellar dust that can be observed as infrared…
Planets are a natural byproduct of the stellar formation process, resulting from local aggregations of material within the disks surrounding young stars. Whereas signatures of gas-giant planets at large orbital separations have been…
Well before the existence of exo-solar systems was confirmed, it was accepted knowledge that most -- if not all -- stars possess circumstellar material during the first one-to-several million years of their pre-main sequence lives, and thus…