Related papers: An Observational View of Structure in Protostellar…
Over the past 10 years abundant evidence has emerged that many (if not all) stars are born with circumstellar disks. Understanding the evolution of post-accretion disks can provide strong constraints on theories of planet formation and…
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…
Flattened, rotating disks of cool dust and gas extending for tens to hundreds of AU are found around almost all low mass stars shortly after their birth. These disks generally persist for several Myr, during which time some material…
Our current understanding of the physical processes of star formation is reviewed, with emphasis on processes occurring in molecular clouds like those observed nearby. The dense cores of these clouds are predicted to undergo gravitational…
In this chapter of the Protostars and Planets VII, we review the breakthrough progress that has been made in the field of high-resolution, high-contrast optical and near-infrared imaging of planet-forming disks. These advancements include…
The key question about early protostellar evolution is how matter is accreted from the large-scale molecular cloud, through the circumstellar disk onto the central star. A sample of 20 Class 0 and I protostars has been observed in continuum…
We investigate the formation of the first stars at the end of the cosmic dark ages with a suite of three-dimensional, moving mesh simulations that directly resolve the collapse of the gas beyond the formation of the first protostar at the…
Astronomers generally assume planet-forming disks are aligned with the rotation of their host star. However, recent observations have shown evidence of warping in protoplanetary disks. One can measure the statistical alignment between the…
The formation of a star is a dynamic process fed by the gravitational collapse of a molecular cloud core. Theoretical models and observations suggest that the majority of this infalling material settles into a protoplanetary disk before…
Protoplanetary disks around young stars are the birth sights of planetary systems like our own. Disks represent the gaseous dusty matter left after the formation of their central stars. The mass and luminosity of the star, initial disk mass…
Improving our understanding of the initial conditions and earliest stages of protostellar collapse is crucial to gain insight into the origin of stellar masses, multiple systems, and protoplanetary disks. Observationally, there are two…
Disks are a natural outcome of the star formation process in which they play a crucial role. Luminous, massive stars of spectral type earlier than B4 are likely to be those that benefit most from the existence of accretion disks, which may…
We present results from the first population synthesis study of protostellar discs. We analyse the evolution and properties of a large sample of protostellar discs formed in a radiation hydrodynamical simulation of star cluster formation.…
Over the past decade, advancement of observational capabilities, specifically the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and SPHERE instrument, alongside theoretical innovations like pebble accretion, have reshaped our…
Young protostellar discs provide the initial conditions for planet formation. The properties of these discs may be different from those of late-phase (T Tauri) discs due to continuing infall from the envelope and protostellar variability…
Protoplanetary disks composed of dust and gas are ubiquitous around young stars and are commonly recognized as nurseries of planetary systems. Their lifetime, appearance, and structure are determined by an interplay between stellar…
Recent observations have suggested that circumstellar disks may commonly form around young stellar objects. Although the formation of circumstellar disks can be a natural result of the conservation of angular momentum in the parent cloud,…
We present basic properties of protostellar disks in the embedded phase of star formation (EPSF), which is difficult to probe observationally using available observational facilities. We use numerical hydrodynamics simulations of cloud core…
High-angular resolution observations at sub-millimeter/millimeter wavelengths of disks surrounding young stars have shown that their morphology is made of azimuthally-symmetric or point-symmetric substructures, in some cases with spiral…
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…