Protostellar Cloud Cores Research Articles

Modeling snowline locations in protostars: The impact of the structure of protostellar cloud cores

Context. Snowlines during star and disk formation are responsible for a range of effects during the evolution of protostars, such as setting the chemical composition of the envelope and disk. This in turn influences the formation of planets by changing the elemental compositions of solids and affecting the collisional properties and outcomes of dust grains. Snowlines can also reveal echoes of past accretion bursts, providing insight into the formation process of stars. Aims. The objective is to identify which parameters (e.g., luminosity, gas density, and presence of disk) dictate the location of snowlines during the early, deeply embedded phase and to quantify how each parameter changes the observed snowline location. Methods. A numerical chemical network coupled with a grid of cylindrical-symmetric physical models was used to identify what physical parameters alter the CO and H2O snowline locations. The investigated parameters are the initial molecular abundances, binding energies of CO and H2O, heating source, cloud core density, outflow cavity opening angle, and disk geometry. Simulated molecular line emission maps were used to quantify the change in the snowline location with each parameter. Results. The snowline radius of molecules with low sublimation temperatures (≲30 K), such as CO, shift outward on the order of 103 AU with an order of magnitude increase in protostellar luminosity. An order of magnitude decrease in cloud core density also shifts the CO snowline position outward by a few 103 AU. The presence of disk(-like) structures cause inward shifts by a factor of a few, and mainly along the disk mid-plane. For molecules that sublimate at higher temperatures, such as H2O, increasing the protostellar luminosity or decreasing the cloud core density by an order of magnitude shifts the snowline position outward by a factor of a few. The presence of a disk concentrates molecules with high sublimation temperatures to compact regions (a few 10 AU) around the protostar by limiting the outward shift of snowline positions. Successful observational measurements of snowline locations are strongly dependent on spatial resolution, the presence or lack thereof of disk(-like) structures, and the inclination of the disk(-like) structure. Conclusions. The CO and H2O snowline locations do not occur at a single, well-defined temperature as is commonly assumed. Instead, the snowline position depends on luminosity, cloud core density, and whether a disk is present or not. Inclination and spatial resolution affect the observability and successful measurement of snowline locations. We note that N2H+ and HCO+ emission serve as good observational tracers of CO and H2O snowline locations. However, constraints on whether or not a disk is present, the observation of additional molecular tracers, and estimating envelope density will help in accurately determining the cause of the observed snowline position. Plots of the N2H+ and HCO+ peak emission radius versus luminosity are provided to compare the models with observations of deeply embedded protostars aiming to measure the CO and H2O snowline locations.

ALMA Survey of Orion Planck Galactic Cold Clumps (ALMASOP): How Do Dense Core Properties Affect the Multiplicity of Protostars?

During the transition phase from a prestellar to a protostellar cloud core, one or several protostars can form within a single gas core. The detailed physical processes of this transition, however, remain unclear. We present 1.3 mm dust continuum and molecular line observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array toward 43 protostellar cores in the Orion molecular cloud complex (λ Orionis, Orion B, and Orion A) with an angular resolution of ∼0.″35 (∼140 au). In total, we detect 13 binary/multiple systems. We derive an overall multiplicity frequency (MF) of 28% ± 4% and a companion star fraction (CSF) of 51% ± 6%, over a separation range of 300–8900 au. The median separation of companions is about 2100 au. The occurrence of stellar multiplicity may depend on the physical characteristics of the dense cores. Notably, those containing binary/multiple systems tend to show a higher gas density and Mach number than cores forming single stars. The integral-shaped filament of the Orion A giant molecular cloud (GMC), which has the highest gas density and hosts high-mass star formation in its central region (the Orion Nebula cluster), shows the highest MF and CSF among the Orion GMCs. In contrast, the λ Orionis GMC has a lower MF and CSF than the Orion B and Orion A GMCs, indicating that feedback from H ii regions may suppress the formation of multiple systems. We also find that the protostars comprising a binary/multiple system are usually at different evolutionary stages.

A cold accretion flow onto one component of a multiple protostellar system

Context. Gas accretion flows transport material from the cloud core onto the protostar. In multiple protostellar systems, it is not clear if the delivery mechanism is preferential or more evenly distributed among the components. Aims. The distribution of gas accretion flows within the cloud core of the deeply embedded, chemically rich, low-mass multiple protostellar system IRAS 16293−2422 is explored out to 6000 AU. Methods. Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array Band 3 observations of low-J transitions of various molecules, such as HNC, cyanopolyynes (HC3N, HC5N), and N2H+, are used to probe the cloud core structure of IRAS 16293−2422 at ~100 AU resolution. Additional Band 3 archival data provide low-J HCN and SiO lines. These data are compared with the corresponding higher-J lines from the PILS Band 7 data for excitation analysis. The HNC/HCN ratio is used as a temperature tracer. Results. The low-J transitions of HC3N, HC5N, HNC, and N2H+ trace extended and elongated structures from 6000 AU down to ~100 AU, without any accompanying dust continuum emission. Two structures are identified: one traces a flow that is likely accreting toward the most luminous component of the IRAS 16293−2422 A system. Temperatures inferred from the HCN/HNC ratio suggest that the gas in this flow is cold, between 10 and 30 K. The other structure is part of an uv-irradiated cavity wall entrained by one of the outflows driven by the source. The two outflows driven by IRAS 16293−2422 A present different molecular gas distributions. Conclusions. Accretion of cold gas is seen from 6000 AU scales onto IRAS 16293−2422 A but not onto source B, indicating that cloud core material accretion is competitive due to feedback onto a dominant component in an embedded multiple protostellar system. The preferential delivery of material could explain the higher luminosity and multiplicity of source A compared to source B. The results of this work demonstrate that several different molecular species, and multiple transitions of each species, are needed to confirm and characterize accretion flows in protostellar cloud cores.

THE LONG-TERM EVOLUTION OF PHOTOEVAPORATING PROTOPLANETARY DISKS

We perform calculations of our one-dimensional, two-zone disk model to study the long-term evolution of the circumstellar disk. In particular, we adopt published photoevaporation prescriptions and examine whether the photoevaporative loss alone, coupled with a range of initial angular momenta of the protostellar cloud, can explain the observed decline of the frequency of optically-thick dusty disks with increasing age. In the parameter space we explore, disks have accreting and/or non-accreting transitional phases lasting of $\lesssim20 %$ of their lifetime, which is in reasonable agreement with observed statistics. Assuming that photoevaporation controls disk clearing, we find that initial angular momentum distribution of clouds needs to be weighted in favor of slowly rotating protostellar cloud cores. Again, assuming inner disk dispersal by photoevaporation, we conjecture that this skewed angular momentum distribution is a result of fragmentation into binary or multiple stellar systems in rapidly-rotating cores. Accreting and non-accreting transitional disks show different evolutionary paths on the $\dot{M}-R_{\rm wall}$ plane, which possibly explains the different observed properties between the two populations. However, we further find that scaling the photoevaporation rates downward by a factor of 10 makes it difficult to clear the disks on the observed timescales, showing that the precise value of the photoevaporative loss is crucial to setting the clearing times. While our results apply only to pure photoevaporative loss (plus disk accretion), there may be implications for models in which planets clear disks preferentially at radii of order 10 AU.

“TAIL-END” BONDI-HOYLE ACCRETION IN YOUNG STAR CLUSTERS: IMPLICATIONS FOR DISKS, PLANETS, AND STARS

Young stars orbiting in the gravitational potential well of forming star clusters pass through the cluster's dense molecular gas and can experience Bondi-Hoyle accretion from reservoirs outside their individual protostellar cloud cores. Accretion can occur for several million years after the stars form, but before the cluster disperses. This accretion is predominantly onto the disk and not the star. N-body simulations of stars orbiting in three young model clusters containing 30, 300, and 3000 stars are presented. The simulations include the gravitational potential of the molecular gas which smoothly disperses over time. The clusters have a star formation efficiency of 33% and a radius of 0.22 pc. We find that the disks surrounding solar-mass stars in the N=30 cluster accretes ~0.01 M_sol (~1 minimum-mass solar nebula, MMSN) per Myr. The accretion rate scales as M^2.1 for stars of mass M. The accretion rate is ~5 times lower for N=3000 cluster, due to its higher stellar velocities and higher temperature. The Bondi-Hoyle accretion rates onto the disks are several times lower than accretion rates observed directly onto young stars (e.g., Muzerolle et al 2005): these two accretion rates follow the same M^2 behavior and may be related. The accreted disk mass is large enough that it may have a substantial and unappreciated effect on disk structure and the formation of planetary systems. We discuss a variety of implications of this process, including its effect on metallicity differences between cluster stars, compositional differences between a star and its disk, the formation of terrestrial and gas-giant planets, and isotopic anomalies observed in our Solar System.

Population III Star Formation in a ΛCDM Universe. II. Effects of a Photodissociating Background

We examine aspects of primordial star formation in the presence of a molecular hydrogen-dissociating ultraviolet background. We compare a set of AMR hydrodynamic cosmological simulations using a single cosmological realization, but with a range of ultraviolet background strengths in the Lyman-Werner band. This allows us to study the effects of Lyman-Werner radiation on suppressing H2 cooling at low densities, as well as the high-density evolution of the collapsing cloud core in a self-consistent cosmological framework. We find that the addition of a photodissociating background results in a delay of the collapse of high-density gas at the center of the most massive halo in the simulation and, as a result, an increase in the virial mass of this halo at the onset of baryon collapse. We find that, contrary to previous results, Population III star formation is not suppressed for J21 ≥ 0.1, but occurs even with backgrounds as high as J21 = 1. We find that H2 cooling leads to collapse despite the depressed core molecular hydrogen fractions due to the elevated H2 cooling rates at T = 2–5 × 103 K. We observe a relationship between the strength of the photodissociating background and the rate of accretion onto the evolving protostellar cloud core, with higher LW background fluxes resulting in higher accretion rates. Finally, we find that the collapsing cloud cores in our simulations do not fragment at densities below n ~ 1010 cm−3, regardless of the strength of the LW background, suggesting that Population III stars forming in halos with Tvir ~ 104 K may still form in isolation.

Population III Star Formation in a ΛCDM Universe. I. The Effect of Formation Redshift and Environment on Protostellar Accretion Rate

We perform 12 extremely high resolution adaptive mesh refinement cosmological simulations of Population III star formation in a ΛCDM universe, varying the box size and large-scale structure, to understand systematic effects in the formation of primordial protostellar cores. We find results that are qualitatively similar to those of previous groups. We observe that in the absence of a photodissociating ultraviolet background, the threshold halo mass for formation of a Population III protostar does not evolve significantly with time in the redshift range studied (33 > z > 19) but exhibits substantial scatter (1.5 < Mvir/105 M☉ < 7) due to different halo assembly histories: halos that assembled more slowly develop cooling cores at lower mass than those that assemble more rapidly, in agreement with previous work. We do, however, observe significant evolution in the accretion rates of Population III protostars with redshift, with objects that form later having higher maximum accretion rates ( 10-4 M☉ yr-1 at z = 33 and 10-2 M☉ yr-1 at z = 20). This can be explained by considering the evolving virial properties of the halos with redshift and the physics of molecular hydrogen formation at low densities. Our result implies that the inferred mass distribution of Population III stars is broader than previously thought and may evolve with redshift. Finally, we observe that our collapsing protostellar cloud cores do not fragment, consistent with previous results, which suggests that Population III stars that form in halos of mass 105-106 M☉ always form in isolation.

Massive Quiescent Cores in Orion. I. Temperature Structure

We have mapped four massive cores in Orion using the \ammonia (J,K) = (1,1) and (J,K) = (2,2) inversion transitions, as part of our effort to study the pre--protostellar phase of massive star formation. These cores were selected to be quiescent, i.e. they contain no apparent IR sources and are not associated with any molecular outflows. These cores are one order of magnitude more massive than dark cloud cores and have about twice the line width. This paper focuses on their temperature structure. We find a statistically significant correlation between the gas kinetic temperature and the gas column density. The general trend is for the gas to be colder where the column density is higher, which we interpret to mean that the interiors of these cores are colder than the regions surrounding them. This is in contrast with dark cloud cores, which exhibit relatively flat temperature profiles. The temperature gradient within the massive quiescent Orion cores is consistent with an external radiation source heating the dust, and dust--gas collisions providing relatively close coupling between dust and gas temperatures. From linewidth and temperature, we also obtained the spatial distribution of the turbulence. An anticorrelation is found between the intensity of emission and the degree of turbulence. Thus, we suggest that the initial stage of massive pre--protostellar cloud cores is relatively quiescent condensations which are cooler than their surroundings.