Related papers: Gravitational Instabilities in Circumstellar Disks
We study global star formation thresholds in the outer parts of galaxies by investigating the stability of disk galaxies embedded in dark halos. The disks are self-gravitating, contain metals and dust, and are exposed to UV radiation. We…
We investigate the formation and evolution of circumstellar disks in turbulent cloud cores until several 104 years after protostar formation using smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) calculations. The formation and evolution process of…
A new idea is proposed for the origin of bulges in spiral galaxies. Numerical simulations for the protogalactic collapse suggest strongly that galactic bulges have been assembled from massive clumps formed in the galactic disks in their…
Spiral shocks are potentially a major source of turbulence in the interstellar medium. To address this problem quantitatively, we use numerical simulations to investigate gas flow across spiral arms in vertically stratified,…
The driving mechanism of protostellar outflows and jets and their effects on the star formation process obtained from recent theoretical and numerical studies are described. Low-velocity outflows are driven by an outer region of the…
The gas from which stars form is magnetized, and strong magnetic fields can efficiently transport angular momentum. Most theoretical models of this phenomenon find that it should prevent formation of large (>100 AU), rotationally-supported…
We argue that gravitational instability of typical protostellar disks is not a viable mechanism for the fragmentation into multiple systems -- binary stars, brown dwarf companions, or gas giant planets -- except at periods above roughly…
Observations of disk galaxies at z~2 have demonstrated that turbulence driven by gravitational instability can dominate the energetics of the disk. We present a 1D simulation code, which we have made publicly available, that economically…
Star formation is intimately linked to the dynamical evolution of molecular clouds. Turbulent fragmentation determines where and when protostellar cores form, and how they contract and grow in mass via accretion from the surrounding cloud…
Strong galactic bars produced in simulations tend to undergo a period of buckling instability that weakens and thickens them and forms a boxy/peanut structure in their central parts. This theoretical prediction has been confirmed by…
Using 2D nonlinear simulations, we study the generation and nonlinear evolution of spiral structure in a star-forming multi-component gravitating disk. We confirm in agreement with previous studies the destabilizing role of a cold gaseous…
We report the finding of a linear, non-axisymmetric, global instability in gas discs around stars, which may be relevant to other astrophysical discs. It takes the form of an $m=1$ mode that grows in the disc density distribution while the…
The processes of planet formation and migration depend intimately on the interaction between planetesimals and the gaseous disks in which they form. The formation of gaps in the disk can severely limit the mass of the planet and its…
Through the magnetic braking and the launching of protostellar outflows, magnetic fields play a major role in the regulation of angular momentum in star formation, which directly impacts the formation and evolution of protoplanetary disks…
Post-asymptotic giant branch (post-AGB) binary stars are evolved systems that host circumbinary discs formed through mass loss during late stage binary interactions. Their structural, morphological, kinematic, and chemical similarities to…
Observational advances over the last decade reveal that star formation is associated with the simultaneous presence of gravitationally collapsing gas, bipolar outflow, and an accretion disk. Two theoretical views of star formation suppose…
Newly formed stars are often observed to possess circumstellar disks, from which mass continues to be accreted onto the star and fed into outflowing jets, and which eventually may evolve into dusty debris disks and planetary systems. Recent…
The role of disk instabilities, such as bars and spiral arms, and the associated resonances, in growing bulges in the inner regions of disk galaxies have long been studied in the low-redshift nearby Universe. There it has long been probed…
The discovery of wide-orbit giant exoplanets has posed a challenge to our conventional understanding of planet formation by coagulation of dust grains and planetesimals, and subsequent accretion of protoplanetary disk gas. As an alternative…
The disks that orbit young stars are the essential conduits and reservoirs of material for star and planet formation. Their structures, meaning the spatial variations of the disk physical conditions, reflect the underlying mechanisms that…