On protostellar evolution

Abstract

An investigation of the evolution of spherically symmetric protostars with initial masses in the range 0.1less than or equal toM/M/sub sun/less than or equal to50 has been carried out. In order to perform the calculations, a numerical technique has been developed in which rapid dynamical motions in one region of the star and quasi-static evolution in another region can be simultaneously computed. The general evolutionary features are similar to those found by other workers: an initial free-fall collapse is followed by the creation of a core in hydrostatic equilibrium, and the core's subsequent accretion of the surrounding envelope. However, our final hydrostatic-equilibrium configurations have radii large compared with those of the protostellar models of Larson (but in reasonable agreement with those of conventional pre-main-sequence models). For low-mass protostars (Mless than or equal toM/sub sun/) the luminosity remains relatively small until late evolutionary times and the evolution is very sensitive to the treatment of convective energy transport. For large-mass protostars (Mgreater than or equal to3M/sub sun/) a convective phase never exists, and a fraction (increasing with mass) of the initial mass is ejected by the combined effects of heating and radiation pressure in the envelope.