Related papers: Accretion onto young stars: the key to disk evolut…
The formation of planets depends on the underlying protoplanetary disc structure, which influences both the accretion and migration rates of embedded planets. The disc itself evolves on time-scales of several Myr during which both…
It is quite likely that self-gravity will play an important role in the evolution of accretion discs, in particular those around young stars, and those around supermassive black holes. We summarise, here, our current understanding of the…
Most analytic work to date on protostellar disks has focused on those in isolation from their environments. However, observations are now beginning to probe the earliest, most embedded phases of star formation, during which disks are…
The hypothesis that massive stars form by accretion can be investigated by simple analytical calculations that describe the effect that the formation of a massive star has on its own accretion flow. Within a simple accretion model that…
We investigate under what circumstances an embedded planet in a protoplanetary disc may sculpt the dust distribution such that it observationally presents as a `transition' disc. We concern ourselves with `transition' discs that have large…
Disk accretion onto magnetic stars occurs in a variety of systems, including accreting neutron stars (with both high and low magnetic fields), white dwarfs, and protostars. We review some of the key physical processes in magnetosphere-disk…
(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…
We develop a semi-analytic formalism for the determination of the evolution of the stellar mass accretion rate for specified density and velocity profiles that emerge from the runaway collapse of a prestellar cloud core. In the early phase,…
Understanding how young stars gain their masses through disk-to-star accretion is of paramount importance in astrophysics. It affects our knowledge about the early stellar evolution, the disk lifetime and dissipation processes, the way the…
Our understanding of the dynamical processes which control the structure and evolution of the interaction region between an accretion disk and the central star is reviewed. If the central star is unmagnetized, this interaction is in the…
We present a method of determining lower limits on the masses of pre-main-sequence (PMS) stars and so constraining the PMS evolutionary tracks. This method uses the red-shifted absorption feature observed in some emission-line profiles of T…
A question central to understanding the origin of our solar system is: how do planets form in circumstellar disks around young stars? Because of the complex nature of the physical processes involved, multi-wavelength observations of large…
Determining the mechanisms that drive the evolution of protoplanetary disks is a necessary step to understand how planets form. Here we measured the mass accretion rate for young stellar objects at age >5 Myr, a critical test for the…
Periodic increases in luminosity arising from variable accretion rates have been predicted for some close pre-main sequence binary stars as they grow from circumbinary disks. The phenomenon is known as "pulsed accretion" and can affect the…
The inner 0.1 AU around accreting T Tauri stars hold clues to many physical processes that characterize the early evolution of solar-type stars. The accretion-ejection connection takes place at least in part in this compact magnetized…
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…
Identifying the processes that determine strength, duration and variability of protostellar mass growth is a fundamental ingredient of any theory of star formation. I discuss protostellar mass accretion rates dM/dt from numerical models…
Accretion of planetary material onto host stars may occur throughout a star's life. Especially prone to accretion, extrasolar planets in short-period orbits, while relatively rare, constitute a significant fraction of the known population,…
We present a theoretical model for primordial star formation. First we describe the structure of the initial gas cores as virialized, quasi-hydrostatic objects in accord with recent high resolution numerical studies. The accretion rate can…
In the poster presented in Cool Star 15, we analyzed the effect of disk accretion on the evolution of very low mass pre-main sequence stars and young brown dwarfs and the resulting uncertainties on the determination of masses and ages. We…