Related papers: The effect of radiative feedback on disc fragmenta…
We investigate the effect of radiative feedback on the star formation process using radiation hydrodynamical simulations. We repeat the previous hydrodynamical star cluster formation simulations of Bate et al., and Bate & Bonnell, but we…
Protostars grow in mass by accreting material through their discs, and this accretion is initially their main source of luminosity. The resulting radiative feedback heats the environments of young protostars, and may thereby suppress…
Forming stars emit a significant amount of radiation into their natal environment. While the importance of radiation feedback from high-mass stars is widely accepted, radiation has generally been ignored in simulations of low-mass star…
Direct imaging searches have revealed many very low-mass objects, including a small number of planetary mass objects, as wide-orbit companions to young stars. The formation mechanism of these objects remains uncertain. In this paper we…
We suggest that a high proportion of brown dwarfs are formed by gravitational fragmentation of massive, extended discs around Sun-like stars. We argue that such discs should arise frequently, but should be observed infrequently, precisely…
Galaxy formation models and simulations rely on various feedback mechanisms to reproduce the observed baryonic scaling relations and galaxy morphologies. Although dwarf galaxy and giant elliptical properties can be explained using feedback…
It is now reasonably clear that disc fragmentation can only operate in the outer parts of protostellar discs ($r > 50$ au). It is also expected that any object that forms via disc fragmentation will have an initial mass greater than that 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…
Understanding the origin of high-mass stars is central to modern astrophysics. We shed light on this problem with simulations using a novel, adaptive-mesh, ray-tracing algorithm. These simulations consistently follow the gravitational…
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…
I discuss the role that disc fragmentation plays in the formation of gas giant and terrestrial planets, and how this relates to the formation of brown dwarfs and low-mass stars, and ultimately to the process of star formation. Protostellar…
Most stars are born in clusters and the resulting gravitational interactions between cluster members may significantly affect the evolution of circumstellar discs and therefore the formation of planets and brown dwarfs. Recent findings…
It is likely that most protostellar systems undergo a brief phase where the protostellar disc is self-gravitating. If these discs are prone to fragmentation, then they are able to rapidly form objects that are initially of several Jupiter…
A large fraction of brown dwarfs and low-mass H-burning stars may form by gravitational fragmentation of protostellar discs. We explore the conditions for disc fragmentation and we find that they are satisfied when a disc is large enough…
An interaction between a star-disc system and another star will perturb the disc, possibly resulting in a significant modification of the disc structure and its properties. It is still unclear if such an encounter can trigger fragmentation…
It is well known that massive protoplanetary disc are gravitationally unstable beyond tens of AU from their parent star. The eventual fate of the self-gravitating gas clumps born in the disc is currently not understood, although the range…
The gravitational instability model of planet/brown dwarf formation proposes that protostellar discs can fragment into objects with masses above a few Jupiter masses at large semimajor axis. Tidal downsizing may reduce both the object mass…
First, the formation of first objects driven by dark matter is revisited by high-resolution hydrodynamic simulations. It is revealed that dark matter haloes of ~10^4M_sun can produce first luminous objects with the aid of dark matter cusps.…
Dozens of planets and brown dwarfs are known to orbit one component of tight stellar binaries ($a_{\rm bin} \lesssim 20$ au), despite circumstellar discs in such systems being truncated to radii of only $\sim (0.2-5)$ au. This presents a…
We investigate how a protoplanetary disc's susceptibility to gravitational instabilities and fragmentation depends on the mass of its host star. We use 1D disc models in conjunction with 3D SPH simulations to determine the critical…