Related papers: Astro2020 Science White Paper: Dynamical Processes…
Planets appear to form in environments shaped by the gas flowing through protostellar disks to the central young stars. The flows in turn are governed by orbital angular momentum transfer. In this chapter we summarize current understanding…
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 formation and evolution of a circumstellar disk in magnetized cloud cores is investigated from prestellar core stage until sim 10^4 yr after protostar formation. In the circumstellar disk, fragmentation first occurs due to gravitational…
Protoplanetary disks are quasi-steady structures whose evolution and dispersal determine the environment for planet formation. I review the theory of protoplanetary disk evolution and its connection to observations. Substantial progress has…
Protoplanetary disks are the sites of planet formation, and the evolution and eventual dispersal of these disks strongly influences the formation of planetary systems. Disk evolution during the planet-forming epoch is driven by accretion…
The known exoplanet population displays a great diversity of orbital architectures, and explaining the origin of this is a major challenge for planet formation theories. The gravitational interaction between young planets and their…
Circumstellar disks are an integral part of the star formation process and the sites where planets are formed. Understanding the physical processes that drive their evolution, as disks evolve from optically thick to optically thin, is…
The building of planetary systems is controlled by the gas and dust dynamics of protoplanetary disks. While the gas is simultaneously accreted onto the central star and dissipated away by winds, dust grains aggregate and collapse to form…
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…
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 assembly and architecture of planetary systems strongly depend on the physical processes governing the evolution and dispersal of protoplanetary disks. Since Protostars and Planets VI, new observations and theoretical insights favor…
Magnetic stresses collimate protostellar winds into a common distribution of force with angle. Sweeping into the ambient medium, such winds drive bipolar molecular outflows whose properties are insensitive to the distribution of ambient gas…
Discs of gas and dust around Myr-old stars are a by-product of the star formation process and provide the raw material to form planets. Hence, their evolution and dispersal directly impact what type of planets can form and affect the final…
Star and planet formation are inextricably linked. In the earliest phases of the collapse of a protostar a disc forms around the young star and such discs are observed for the first several million years of a star's life. It is within these…
Star formation is thought to be triggered by gravitational collapse of the dense cores of molecular clouds. Angular momentum conservation during the collapse results in the progressive increase of the centrifugal force, which eventually…
The spatial distribution and lifetime of molecular gas in the inner regions of young circumstellar disks are key to understanding the formation of planetary systems. Gas-rich disks are observed to disperse in the first ~10 Myr, and recent…
This review introduces physical processes in protoplanetary disks relevant to accretion and the initial stages of planet formation. After a brief overview of the observational context, I introduce the elementary theory of disk structure and…
The role of outflows in the formation of stars and the protostellar disks that generate them is a central question in astrophysics. Outflows are associated with star formation across the entire stellar mass spectrum. In this review, we…
The solid content of circumstellar disks is inherited from the interstellar medium: dust particles of at most a micrometer in size. Protoplanetary disks are the environment where these dust grains need to grow at least 13 orders of…
Protoplanetary disks are thought to be the birth places of planetary systems. The formation and the subsequent evolution of protoplanetary disks are regulated by the star formation process, which begins with the collapse of a cloud core to…