Related papers: Protostellar Disk Dynamos and Hydromagnetic Outflo…
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,…
Despite extensive study, the mechanisms by which Be star disks acquire high densities and angular momentum while displaying variability on many time scales are still far from clear. In this paper, we discuss how magnetic torquing may help…
One of the key problems in star formation research is to determine the role of magnetic fields. Starting from the atomic inter-cloud medium (ICM) which has density nH ~ 1 per cubic cm, gas must accumulate from a volume several hundred pc…
We investigate outflows driven by a giant protoplanet using three-dimensional MHD nested grid simulations. We consider a local region around the protoplanet in the protoplanetary disk, and calculate three models: (a) unmagnetized disk…
In this chapter we review recent advances in understanding the roles that magnetic fields play throughout the star formation process, gained through observations and simulations of molecular clouds, the dense, star-forming phase of the…
The formation of protoplanetary discs during the collapse of molecular dense cores is significantly influenced by angular momentum transport, notably by the magnetic torque. In turn, the evolution of the magnetic field is determined by…
We consider the hypothesis that galactic magnetic fields are primordial. We also discuss the various objections to this hypothesis. We assume that there was a magnetic field present in the galactic plasma before the galaxy formed. After the…
Recent high-resolution simulations demonstrate that disks around primordial protostars easily fragment in the accretion phase before the protostars accrete less than a solar mass. To understand why the gravitational instability generally…
Stars are, generically, rotating and magnetised objects with a misalignment between their magnetic and rotation axes. Since a magnetic field induces a permanent distortion to its host, it provides effective rigidity even to a fluid star,…
Magnetorotational instability (MRI) is the most promising mechanism behind accretion in low-mass protostellar disks. Here we present the first analysis of the global structure and evolution of non-ideal MRI-driven T-Tauri disks on…
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…
A variety of processes play a role in the evolution of protostellar disks. Here I focus on the uncertain issue of magnetic field-disk coupling and its implications for magnetically-driven turbulence and disk-driven winds. At present it is…
We investigate the dissipation of magnetic flux in primordial star-forming clouds throughout their collapse including the run-away collapse phase as well as the accretion phase. We solve the energy equation and the non-equilibrium chemical…
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…
The explanation of the observed galactic magnetic fields may require the existence of a primordial magnetic field. Such a field may arise during the early cosmological phase transitions, or because of other particle physics related…
The space velocities and Galactic orbital elements of stars calculated from the currently available high-accuracy observations in our summary catalog of spectroscopic magnesium abundances in dwarfs and subgiants in the solar neighborhood…
Recent advances in our understanding of massive star formation have made clear the important role of protostellar disks in mediating accretion. Here we describe a simple, semi-analytic model for young, deeply embedded, massive accretion…
We review theoretical models of the early stages of star formation, in which gravitational collapse is strongly regulated by magnetic fields and the associated process of ambipolar diffusion. We discuss results of numerical simulations and…
Understanding the star formation process is central to much of modern astrophysics. For several decades it has been thought that stellar birth is primarily controlled by the interplay between gravity and magnetostatic support, modulated by…
Early-type stars show a bimodal distribution of magnetic field strengths, with some showing very strong fields ($\gtrsim 1\,\mathrm{kG}$) and others very weak fields ($\lesssim 10\,\mathrm{G}$). Recently, we proposed that this reflects the…