Related papers: Variability in the Assembly of Protostellar System…
The formation and evolution of disks early in the protostellar phase is an area of study in which the ngVLA is poised to make significant breakthroughs. The high-sensitivity and resolution at wavelengths of 3~mm and longer will enable…
Recent imaging of protoplanetary disks with high resolution and contrast have revealed a striking variety of substructure. Of particular interest are cases where near-infrared scattered light images show evidence for low-intensity annular…
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…
We investigate dust dynamics and evolution during the formation of a protostellar accretion disk around intermediate mass stars via 2D numerical simulations. Using three different detailed dust models, compact spherical particles, fractal…
Protoplanetary discs are crucial to understanding how planets form and evolve, but these objects are subject to the vagaries of the birth environments of their host stars. In particular, photoionising radiation from massive stars has been…
The dust in planet-forming disks evolve rapidly through growth and radial drift, and external photoevaporation also contributes to this evolution in massive star-forming regions. We test whether the presence of substructures can explain the…
The crucial initial step in planet formation is the agglomeration of micron-sized dust into macroscopic aggregates. This phase is likely to happen very early during the protostellar disc formation, which is characterised by active gas…
The formation of low-mass stars in molecular clouds involves accretion disks and jets, which are of broad astrophysical interest. Accreting stars represent the closest examples of these phenomena. Star and planet formation are also…
The role of convection in the gas-dust accretion disk around a young star is studied. The evolution of a Keplerian disk is modeled using the Pringle equation, which describes the time variations of the surface density under the action of…
High-spatial-resolution observations of disks around young stars suggest planetary systems begin forming early, during the protostellar phase (< 1 Myr) when stars accrete most of their mass via infall from the surrounding cloud. During this…
Studies of the evolution of massive protostars and the evolution of their host molecular cloud cores are commonly treated as separate problems. However, interdependencies between the two can be significant. Here, we study the simultaneous…
In star formation, magnetic fields act as a cosmic angular momentum extractor that increases mass accretion rates onto protostars and in the process, creates spectacular outflows. However, recently it has been argued that this magnetic…
Understanding the collapse of dense molecular cloud cores to stellar densities and the subsequent evolution of the protostar is of importance to model the feedback effects such an object has on its surrounding environment, as well as…
Young stars are expected to gain most of their mass by accretion from a disk that forms around them as a result of angular momentum conservation in the collapsing protostellar cloud. Accretion initially proceeds at high rates of…
The evolution of circumstellar discs is influenced by their surroundings. The relevant processes include external photoevaporation due to nearby stars, and dynamical truncations. The impact of these processes on disc populations depends on…
The chemical and physical evolution of primitive materials in protoplanetary disks are determined by the types of environments they are exposed to and their residence times within each environment. Here a method for calculating…
(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…
Are magnetic fields important in primordial star formation? Assuming that star formation occurs via an accretion disk that is turbulent, initially because of local gravitational instability, we calculate the disk structure for realistic…
Young stars exhibit variability due to changes in the gas accretion rate onto them, an effect that should be quite significant in the early stages of their formation. As protostars are embedded within their natal cloud, this variability may…
During the past five years, the Spitzer Space Telescope and improved ground-based facilities have enabled a huge increase in the number of circumstellar disks, around young stars of Solar mass or smaller, in which the composition of the…