Related papers: PPV Chapter - The Formation of Brown Dwarfs
How frequent are brown dwarf binaries? Do brown dwarfs have planets? Are current theoretical pre-main-sequence evolutionary tracks valid down to the substellar regime? - Any detection of a companion to a brown dwarf takes us one step…
Many questions in physical cosmology regarding the thermal history of the intergalactic medium, chemical enrichment, reionization, etc. are thought to be intimately related to the nature and evolution of pregalactic structure. In particular…
The protostellar outflow mechanism operates for a significant fraction of the pre-main sequence phase of a solar mass star and is thought to have a key role in star and perhaps even planet formation. This energetic mechanism manifests…
Recent observations of nearby star forming regions have offered evidence that young brown dwarfs undergo a period of mass accretion analogous to the T Tauri phase observed in young stars. Brown dwarf analogs to stellar protostars, however,…
Under the right conditions brown dwarfs that gain enough mass late in their lives to cross the hydrogen burning limit will not turn into low-mass stars, but rather remain essentially brown dwarf-like. While these objects, called either…
We investigate the effect of the turbulent power spectrum (P(k) \propto k^{-n}, with n=3, 4 or 5) on the fragmentation of low-mass cores, by means of SPH simulations. We adopt initial density profiles and low levels of turbulence based on…
The fragmentation process in collapsing clouds with various metallicities is studied using three-dimensional nested-grid hydrodynamics. Initial clouds are specified by three parameters: cloud metallicity, initial rotation energy and initial…
We present ALMA continuum and spectral line data at 0.89 mm and 3.2 mm for three disks surrounding young brown dwarfs and very low mass stars in the Taurus star forming region. Dust thermal emission is detected and spatially resolved for…
The dominant formation mechanism of brown dwarfs and planetary mass objects in star-forming regions is presently uncertain. Do they form like stars, via the collapse and fragmentation of cores in Giant Molecular clouds, or do they form like…
A new view of disk evolution is emerging from self-consistent numerical simulation modeling of the formation of circumstellar disks from the direct collapse of prestellar cloud cores. This has implications for many aspects of star and…
Stars form from dense cores in turbulent molecular clouds. According to the standard scenario of star formation, dense cores are created by cloud fragmentation. However, the physical mechanisms driving this process are still not fully…
The formation mechanism of brown dwarfs (BDs) is one of the long-standing problems in star formation because the typical Jeans mass in molecular clouds is too large to form these substellar objects. To answer this question, it is crucial to…
Brown dwarfs constitute a missing link between low-mass stars and giant planets. Their atmospheres display chemical species typical of planets, and one could wonder whether they also have weather-like patterns. While brown dwarf surface…
Masses and radii of transiting brown dwarfs can be measured directly in contrast to isolated field brown dwarfs, whose mass and radius inferences are model dependent. Therefore, transiting brown dwarfs are a testbed for the interior and…
Recent spacecraft observations exploring solar system properties impact standard paradigms of the formation of stars, planets and comets. We stress the unexpected cloud of microscopic dust resulting from the DEEP IMPACT mission, and the…
The first stars are known to form in primordial gas, either in minihalos with about $10^6$~M$_\odot$ or so-called atomic cooling halos of about $10^8$~M$_\odot$. Simulations have shown that gravitational collapse and disk formation in…
We investigate the dependence of stellar properties on the mean thermal Jeans mass in molecular clouds. We compare the results from the two largest hydrodynamical simulations of star formation to resolve the fragmentation process down to…
Brown dwarfs bridge the gap between the stellar and planetary mass regimes. Evolving from conditions very similar to the lowest-mass stars, the atmospheres of older brown dwarfs closely resemble those expected in close-in extrasolar giant…
Super-Jupiters, brown dwarfs, and stars can form from the collapse of self-gravitating discs. Such discs are turbulent, with flocculent spiral arms accelerating gas to transonic speeds horizontally and vertically. Objects that fragment from…
Recent direct imaging discoveries suggest a new class of massive, distant planets around A stars. These widely separated giants have been interpreted as signs of planet formation driven by gravitational instability, but the viability of…