Related papers: Shaping the Brown Dwarf Desert: Predicting the Pri…
Context: The principal mechanism by which brown dwarfs form, and its relation to the formation of higher-mass (i.e. hydrogen-burning) stars, is poorly understood. Aims: We advocate a new model for the formation of brown dwarfs. Methods: In…
The origin of brown dwarfs (BDs) is an important component of the theory of star formation, because BDs are approximately as numerous as solar mass stars. It has been suggested that BDs originate from the gravitational fragmentation of…
We suggest that low-mass hydrogen-burning stars like the Sun should sometimes form with massive extended discs; and we show, by means of radiation hydrodynamic simulations, that the outer parts of such discs (R>100 AU) are likely to…
We present results from the first hydrodynamical star formation calculation to demonstrate that brown dwarfs are a natural and frequent product of the collapse and fragmentation of a turbulent molecular cloud. The brown dwarfs form via the…
Hundreds of brown dwarfs (BDs) have been discovered in the last few years in stellar clusters and among field stars. BDs are almost as numerous as hydrogen burning stars and so a theory of star formation should also explain their origin.…
We review the current state of observational work on the formation of brown dwarfs, focusing on their initial mass function, velocity and spatial distributions at birth, multiplicity, accretion, and circumstellar disks. The available…
We suggest that a high proportion of brown dwarfs are formed by gravitational fragmentation of massive extended discs around Sun-like stars. Such discs should arise frequently, but should be observed infrequently, precisely because they…
Several mechanisms have been proposed for the formation of brown dwarfs, but there is as yet no consensus as to which -- if any -- are operative in nature. Any theory of brown dwarf formation must explain the observed statistics of brown…
We review four mechanisms for forming brown dwarfs: (i) turbulent fragmentation (producing very low-mass prestellar cores); (ii) gravitational instabilities in discs; (iii) dynamical ejection of stellar embryos from their placental cores;…
We review five mechanisms for forming brown dwarfs: (i) turbulent fragmentation of molecular clouds, producing very low-mass prestellar cores by shock compression; (ii) collapse and fragmentation of more massive prestellar cores; (iii) disc…
The mass domain where massive extrasolar planets and brown dwarfs overlap is still poorly understood due to the paucity of brown dwarfs orbiting close to solar-type stars, the so-called brown dwarf desert. In this paper we collect all of…
A large fraction of the observed brown dwarfs may form by gravitational fragmentation of unstable discs. This model reproduces the brown dwarf desert, and provides an explanation the existence of planetary-mass objects and for the binary…
The observational properties of brown dwarfs pose challenges to the theory of star formation. Because their mass is much smaller than the typical Jeans mass of interstellar clouds, brown dwarfs are most likely formed through secondary…
The formation mechanism of Brown Dwarfs (BDs), whether akin to stars or ejected planetary-mass objects, remains debated. We present the first 3D radiation-MHD simulations of magnetized, turbulent, gravitationally unstable low-mass cores…
The observational properties of brown dwarfs pose challenges to the theory of star formation. Because their mass is much smaller than the typical Jeans mass of interstellar clouds, brown dwarfs are most likely formed through secondary…
We present results from the largest numerical simulation of star formation to resolve the fragmentation process down to the opacity limit. The simulation follows the collapse and fragmentation of a large-scale turbulent molecular cloud to…
Our first aim is to calculate the minimum mass for Primary Fragmentation in a variety of potential star-formation scenarios, i.e. (i) hierarchical fragmentation of a 3-D medium; (ii) one-shot, 2-D fragmentation of a shock-compressed layer;…
The formation of brown dwarfs (BDs) due to the fragmentation of proto-stellar disks undergoing pairwise encounters was investigated. High resolution allowed the use of realistic initial disk models where both the vertical structure and the…
Whether BDs form as stars through gravitational collapse ("star-like") or BDs and some very low-mass stars constitute a separate population which form alongside stars comparable to the population of planets, e.g. through circumstellar disk…
A large fraction of brown dwarfs and low-mass stars may form by gravitational fragmentation of relatively massive (a few 0.1 Msun), extended (a few hundred AU) discs around Sun-like stars. We present an ensemble of radiative hydrodynamic…