Protostellar Disks Research Articles

Grain Growth and Dust Segregation Revealed by Multiwavelength Analysis of the Class I Protostellar Disk WL 17

The first step toward planet formation is grain growth from (sub)micrometer to millimeter/centimeter sizes. Grain growth has been reported not only in Class II protoplanetary disks but also in Class 0/I protostellar envelopes. However, early-stage grain growth occurring in Class 0/I stages has rarely been observed on the protostellar disk scale. Here we present the results from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array Band 3 (λ = 3.1 mm) and 7 (λ = 0.87 mm) archival data of the Class I protostellar disk WL 17 in the ρ Ophiuchus molecular cloud. Disk substructures are found in both bands, but they are different: while a central hole and a symmetric ring appear in Band 3, an off-center hole and an asymmetric ring are shown in Band 7. Furthermore, we obtain an asymmetric spectral index map with a low mean value of α = 2.28 ± 0.02, suggestive of grain growth and dust segregation on the protostellar disk scale. Our radiative transfer modeling verifies these two features by demonstrating that 10 cm sized large grains are symmetrically distributed, whereas 10 μm sized small grains are asymmetrically distributed. In addition, the analysis shows that the disk is expected to be massive and gravitationally unstable. We thus suggest a single Jupiter-mass protoplanet formed by gravitational instability as the origin of the ring-like structure, grain growth, and dust segregation identified in WL 17.

Can envelope backwarming of discs explain mm-bright, extended protostellar structures?

ABSTRACT We construct simple models to explore in principle whether the backwarming by radiation from infalling envelopes can significantly heat and change the structure of protoplanetary discs. The motivation for this investigation is the recent study of a small subset of Orion protostars by Karnath et al., who argued that the bright, extended, and irregular sub-mm and mm emission did not arise from protostellar discs because the images were not elongated as expected. We therefore constructed simple disc models to see whether heating from the envelope surrounding a disc could in principle significantly increase disc scale heights and thus produce less-elongated images. We assume steady accretion and solve the radiative transfer self-consistently. For central luminosities and envelopes roughly comparable to the Karnath et al. protostars, we find that while envelope irradiation can significantly heat the discs, the magnitude of the effect only increases scale heights by modest factors, and so our models cannot easily account for the observed morphologies. We speculate that dynamical perturbations by companion protostars might be responsible for the observed complex structure.

Gravitational Instability, Spiral Substructure, and Modest Grain Growth in a Typical Protostellar Disk: Modeling Multiwavelength Dust Continuum Observations of TMC1A

Embedded class 0/I protostellar disks represent the initial condition for planet formation. This calls for a better understanding of their bulk properties and the dust grains within them. We model multiwavelength dust continuum observations of the disk surrounding the class I protostar TMC1A to provide insight on these properties. The observations can be well fit by a gravitationally self-regulated (i.e., marginally gravitationally unstable and internally heated) disk model with surface density Σ ∼ 1720(R/10 au)−1.96 g cm−2 and midplane temperature T mid ∼ 185(R/10 au)−1.27 K. The observed disk contains an m = 1 spiral substructure; we use our model to predict the spiral’s pitch angle, and the prediction is consistent with the observations. This agreement serves as both a test of our model and strong evidence of the gravitational nature of the spiral. Our model estimates a maximum grain size , which is consistent with grain growth being capped by a fragmentation barrier with a threshold velocity of ∼1 m s−1. We further demonstrate that the observational properties of TMC1A are typical among the observed population of class 0/I disks, which hints that traditional methods of disk data analysis based on Gaussian fitting and the assumption of optically thin dust emission could have systematically underestimated the disk size and mass and overestimated the grain size.

Possible episodic infall towards a compact disk in B335

Context. Previous observations of the isolated Class 0 source B335 have presented evidence of ongoing infall in various molecular lines, such as HCO+, HCN, and CO. There have been no confirmed observations of a rotationally supported disk on scales greater than ~12 au. Aims. The presence of an outflow in B335 suggests that a disk is also expected to be present or undergoing formation. To constrain the earliest stages of protostellar evolution and disk formation, we aim to map the region where gas falls inwards and observationally constrain its kinematics. Furthermore, we aim to put strong limits on the size and orientation of any disk-like structure in B335. Methods. We used high angular resolution 13CO data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and combined it with shorter-baseline archival data to produce a high-fidelity image of the infall in B335. We also revisited the imaging of high-angular resolution Band 6 continuum data to study the dust distribution in the immediate vicinity of B335. Results. Continuum emission shows an elliptical structure (10 by 7 au) with a position angle 5 degrees east of north, consistent with the expectation for a forming disk in B335. A map of the infall velocity (as estimated from the 13CO emission), shows evidence of asymmetric infall, predominantly from the north and south. Close to the protostar, infall velocities appear to exceed free-fall velocities. Three-dimensional (3D) radiative transfer models, where the infall velocity is allowed to vary within the infall region, may explain the observed kinematics. Conclusions. The data suggest that a disk has started to form in B335 and that gas is falling towards that disk. However, kinematically-resolved line data towards the disk itself is needed to confirm the presence of a rotationally supported disk around this young protostar. The high infall velocities we measured are not easily reconcilable with a magnetic braking scenario, suggesting that there is a pressure gradient that allows the infall velocity to vary in the region.

Flow of gas detected from beyond the filaments to protostellar scales in Barnard 5

Context. The infall of gas from outside natal cores has proven to feed protostars after the main accretion phase (Class 0). This changes our view of star formation to a picture that includes asymmetric accretion (streamers), and a larger role of the environment. However, the connection between streamers and the filaments that prevail in star-forming regions is unknown. Aims. We investigate the flow of material toward the filaments within Barnard 5 (B5) and the infall from the envelope to the protostellar disk of the embedded protostar B5-IRS1. Our goal is to follow the flow of material from the larger, dense core scale, to the protostellar disk scale. Methods. We present new HC3N line data from the NOEMA and 30 m telescopes covering the coherence zone of B5, together with ALMA H2CO and C18O maps toward the protostellar envelope. We fit multiple Gaussian components to the lines so as to decompose their individual physical components. We investigated the HC3N velocity gradients to determine the direction of chemically fresh gas flow. At envelope scales, we used a clustering algorithm to disentangle the different kinematic components within H2CO emission. Results. At dense core scales, HC3N traces the infall from the B5 region toward the filaments. HC3N velocity gradients are consistent with accretion toward the filament spines plus flow along them. We found a ~2800 au streamer in H2CO emission, which is blueshifted with respect to the protostar and deposits gas at outer disk scales. The strongest velocity gradients at large scales curve toward the position of the streamer at small scales, suggesting a connection between both flows. Conclusions. Our analysis suggests that the gas can flow from the dense core to the protostar. This implies that the mass available for a protostar is not limited to its envelope, and it can receive chemically unprocessed gas after the main accretion phase.

Kinematics and stability of high-mass protostellar disk candidates at sub-arcsecond resolution

Context. The fragmentation mode of high-mass molecular clumps and the accretion processes that form the most massive stars (M ≳ 8 M⊙) are still not well understood. A growing number of case studies have found massive young stellar objects (MYSOs) to harbour disk-like structures, painting a picture that the formation of high-mass stars may proceed through disk accretion, similar to that of lower-mass stars. However, the properties of such structures have yet to be uniformly and systematically characterised. Aims. The aim of this work is to uniformly study the kinematic properties of a large sample of MYSOs and characterise the stability of possible circumstellar disks against gravitational fragmentation. Methods. We have undertaken a large observational programme (CORE) making use of interferometric observations from the Northern Extended Millimetre Array (NOEMA) for a sample of 20 luminous (L > 104 L⊙) protostellar objects in the 1.37 mm wavelength regime in both continuum and spectral line emission, reaching 0.4″ resolution (800 au at 2 kpc). Results. We present the gas kinematics of the full sample and detect dense gas emission surrounding 15 regions within the CORE sample. Using the dense gas tracer CH3CN, we find velocity gradients across 13 cores perpendicular to the directions of bipolar molecular outflows, making them excellent disk candidates. The extent of the CH3CN emission tracing the disk candidates varies from 1800 to 8500 au. Analysing the free-fall to rotational timescales, we find that the sources are rotationally supported. The rotation profiles of some disk candidates are well described by differential rotation while for others the profiles are poorly resolved. Fitting the velocity profiles with a Keplerian model, we find protostellar masses in the range of ~ 10–25 M⊙. Modelling the level population of CH3CN (12K–11K) K = 0–6 lines, we present temperature maps and find median temperature in the range 70–210 K with a diversity in distributions. Radial profiles of the specific angular momentum (j) for the best disk candidates span a range of 1–2 orders of magnitude, on average ~10−3 km s−1 pc, and they follow j ∝ r1.7, which is consistent with a poorly resolved rotating and infalling envelope-disk model. Studying the Toomre stability of the disk candidates, we find almost all (11 out of 13) disk candidates to be prone to fragmentation due to gravitational instabilities at the scales probed by our observations, as a result of their high disk to stellar mass ratio. In particular, disks with masses greater than ~ 10–20% of the mass of their host (proto)stars are Toomre unstable, and more luminous YSOs tend to have disks that are more massive compared to their host star and hence more prone to fragmentation. Conclusions. In this work, we show that most disk structures around high-mass YSOs are prone to disk fragmentation early in their formation due to their high disk to stellar mass ratio. This impacts the accretion evolution of high-mass protostars which will have significant implications for the formation of the most massive stars.

Early Planet Formation in Embedded Disks (eDisk). IX. High-resolution ALMA Observations of the Class 0 Protostar R CrA IRS5N and Its Surroundings

Abstract We present high-resolution high-sensitivity observations of the Class 0 protostar RCrA IRS5N as part of the Atacama Large Milimeter/submilimeter Array large program Early Planet Formation in Embedded Disks. The 1.3 mm continuum emission reveals a flattened continuum structure around IRS5N, consistent with a protostellar disk in the early phases of evolution. The continuum emission appears smooth and shows no substructures. However, a brightness asymmetry is observed along the minor axis of the disk, suggesting that the disk is optically and geometrically thick. We estimate the disk mass to be between 0.007 and 0.02 M ⊙. Furthermore, molecular emission has been detected from various species, including C18O (2–1), 12CO (2–1), 13CO (2–1), and H2CO (30,3 − 20,2, 32,1 − 22,0, and 32,2 − 22,1). By conducting a position–velocity analysis of the C18O (2–1) emission, we find that the disk of IRS5N exhibits characteristics consistent with Keplerian rotation around a central protostar with a mass of approximately 0.3 M ⊙. Additionally, we observe dust continuum emission from the nearby binary source IRS5a/b. The emission in 12CO toward IRS5a/b seems to emanate from IRS5b and flow into IRS5a, suggesting material transport between their mutual orbits. The lack of a detected outflow and large-scale negatives in 12CO observed toward IRS5N suggests that much of the flux from IRS5N is being resolved out. Using a 1D radiative transfer model, we infer the mass of the envelope surrounding IRS5N to be ∼1.2 M ⊙. Due to this substantial surrounding envelope, the central IRS5N protostar is expected to be significantly more massive in the future.

Early Planet Formation in Embedded Disks (eDisk). VII. Keplerian Disk, Disk Substructure, and Accretion Streamers in the Class 0 Protostar IRAS 16544–1604 in CB 68

We present observations of the Class 0 protostar IRAS 16544–1604 in CB 68 from the “Early Planet Formation in Embedded Disks (eDisk)” ALMA Large program. The ALMA observations target continuum and lines at 1.3 mm with an angular resolution of ∼5 au. The continuum image reveals a dusty protostellar disk with a radius of ∼30 au seen close to edge-on and asymmetric structures along both the major and minor axes. While the asymmetry along the minor axis can be interpreted as the effect of the dust flaring, the asymmetry along the major axis comes from a real nonaxisymmetric structure. The C18O image cubes clearly show the gas in the disk that follows a Keplerian rotation pattern around a ∼0.14 M ⊙ central protostar. Furthermore, there are ∼1500 au scale streamer-like features of gas connecting from northeast, north–northwest, and northwest to the disk, as well as the bending outflow as seen in the 12CO (2–1) emission. At the apparent landing point of the NE streamer, there is SO (65–54) and SiO (5–4) emission detected. The spatial and velocity structure of the NE streamer can be interpreted as a free-falling gas with a conserved specific angular momentum, and the detection of the SO and SiO emission at the tip of the streamer implies the presence of accretion shocks. Our eDisk observations have unveiled that the Class 0 protostar in CB 68 has a Keplerian-rotating disk with a flaring and nonaxisymmetric structure associated with accretion streamers and outflows.

First Detection of a Linear Structure in the Midplane of the Young HH 211 Protostellar Disk: A Spiral Arm?

Spiral structures have been detected in evolved protostellar disks, driving the disk accretion toward the central protostars to facilitate star formation. However, it is still unclear if these structures can form earlier in young protostellar disks. With the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, we have detected and spatially resolved a very young and nearly edge-on dusty disk with a radius of only ∼20 au in the HH 211 protostellar system at submillimeter wavelength. It is geometrically thick, indicating that the submillimeter-light-emitting dust grains have yet to settle to the midplane for planet formation. Intriguingly, it shows three bright linear structures parallel to the equatorial plane, resembling a three-layer pancake that has not been seen before. The top and bottom ones arise from the warm disk surfaces, unveiling the flared structure of the disk. More importantly, the middle one is in the dense midplane of the disk and can be modeled as a trailing spiral arm excited by disk gravity, as seen in evolved protostellar disks, supporting the presence of spiral structures in the very early phase for disk accretion.

Stellar Rotation and Structure of the α Persei Complex: When Does Gyrochronology Start to Work?

On the pre-main sequence, the rotation rates of Sun-like stars are dictated by the interplay between the protostellar disk and the star’s contraction. At ages exceeding 100 Myr, magnetic spindown erases the initial stellar spin rate and enables rotation-based age dating (gyrochronology). The exact time at which the transition between these two regimes occurs depends on stellar mass, and has been challenging to empirically resolve due to a lack of viable calibration clusters. The α Persei open cluster (t ≈ 80 Myr, d ≈ 170 pc) may provide the needed calibrator, but recent analyses of the Gaia data have provided wildly varying views of its age and spatial extent. As such, we analyze a combination of TESS, Gaia, and LAMOST data to calibrate gyrochronology at the age of α Per and to uncover the cluster’s true morphology. By assembling a list of rotationally confirmed α Per members, we provide strong evidence that α Per is part of a larger complex of similarly aged stars. Through kinematic back-integration, we show that the most diffuse components of α Per were five times closer together 50 Myr ago. Finally, we use our stellar rotation periods to derive a relative gyrochronology age for α Per of 67% ± 12% the age of the Pleiades, which yields 86 ± 16 Myr given current knowledge. We show that by this age, stars more massive than ≈0.8 M ⊙ have converged to form a well-defined slow sequence.

The role of the drag force in the gravitational stability of dusty planet-forming disc – II. Numerical simulations

ABSTRACT Young protostellar discs are likely to be both self-gravitating, and to support grain growth to sizes where the particles decoupled from the gas. This combination could lead to short-wavelength fragmentation of the solid component in otherwise non-fragmenting gas discs, forming Earth-mass solid cores during the Class 0/I stages of young stellar object evolution. We use three-dimensional smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations of two-fluid discs, in the regime where the Stokes number of the particles St > 1, to study how the formation of solid clumps depends on the disc-to-star mass ratio, the strength of gravitational instability, and the Stokes number. Gravitational instability of the simulated discs is sustained by local cooling. We find that the ability of the spiral structures to concentrate solids increases with the cooling time and decreases with the Stokes number, while the relative dynamical temperature between gas and dust of the particles decreases with the cooling time and the disc-to-star mass ratio and increases with the Stokes number. Dust collapse occurs in a subset of high disc mass simulations, yielding clumps whose mass is close to linear theory estimates, namely 1–10 M⊕. Our results suggest that if planet formation occurs via this mechanism, the best conditions correspond to near the end of the self-gravitating phase, when the cooling time is long and the Stokes number close to unity.

Jeans Instability of an Astrophysical Self-Gravitating Medium in the Presence of High Radiation Pressure and Diffuse Radiative Transfer

Within the problem of modeling the evolution of a protostellar disk, a discussion is presented on the effect of radiation on the Jeans gravitational instability for a self-gravitating optically thick (for intrinsic infrared radiation) gas-and-dust medium, taking into account the influence of radiation pressure perturbations and radiative diffusion transfer on the critical wavelength. Two radiative diffusion approximations are considered: the case of perfect thermal equilibrium with the same temperature of matter and radiation and the case of the time dependence of the radiation field with an energy separation between radiation and matter. An analysis of the normal regime of modes is used to derive dispersion relations, which enable the derivation of modifications of the classical Jeans instability criterion under the influence of radiation pressure and radiation diffusion. In particular, it is shown that, in contrast to the system’s local thermodynamic equilibrium, where the acoustic velocity of perturbed gas propagates with the isothermal speed of sound, in the case of different temperatures of radiation and gas, the perturbing wave propagates with the adiabatic speed of sound in gas. The results obtained are aimed at solving the problem of gravitational instability of individual massive protostellar disks or self-gravitating radiative media characterized by large optical depths for their dust-transformed intrinsic infrared radiation.

Massive Protostellar Disks as a Hot Laboratory of Silicate Grain Evolution

Typical accretion disks around massive protostars are hot enough for water ice to sublimate. We here propose to utilize the massive protostellar disks for investigating the collisional evolution of silicate grains with no ice mantle, which is an essential process for the formation of rocky planetesimals in protoplanetary disks around lower-mass stars. We, for the first time, develop a model of massive protostellar disks that includes the coagulation, fragmentation, and radial drift of dust. We show that the maximum grain size in the disks is limited by collisional fragmentation rather than by radial drift. We derive analytic formulae that produce the radial distribution of the maximum grain size and dust surface density in the steady state. Applying the analytic formulae to the massive protostellar disk of GGD27-MM1, where the grain size is constrained from a millimeter polarimetric observation, we infer that the silicate grains in this disk fragment at collision velocities above ≈10 m s−1. The inferred fragmentation threshold velocity is lower than the maximum grain collision velocity in typical protoplanetary disks around low-mass stars, implying that coagulation alone may not lead to the formation of rocky planetesimals in those disks. With future measurements of grain sizes in massive protostellar disks, our model will provide more robust constraints on the sticking property of silicate grains.

Predicting Stellar Mass Accretion: An Optimized Echo State Network Approach in Time Series Modeling

Modeling the dynamics of the formation and evolution of protostellar disks as well as the history of stellar mass accretion typically involve the numerical solution of complex systems of coupled differential equations. The resulting mass accretion history of protostars is known to be highly episodic due to recurrent instabilities and also exhibits short timescale flickering. By leveraging the strong predictive abilities of neural networks, we extract some of the critical temporal dynamics experienced during the mass accretion including periods of instability. Particularly, we utilize a novel form of the Echo-State Neural Network (ESN), which has been shown to efficiently deal with data having inherent nonlinearity. We introduce the use of Optimized-ESN (Opt-ESN) to make model-independent time series forecasting of mass accretion rate in the evolution of protostellar disks. We apply the network to multiple hydrodynamic simulations with different initial conditions and exhibiting a variety of temporal dynamics to demonstrate the predictability of the Opt-ESN model. The model is trained on simulation data of $\sim 1-2$ Myr, and achieves predictions with a low normalized mean square error ($\sim 10^{-5}$ to $10^{-3}$) for forecasts ranging between 100 and 3800 yr. This result shows the promise of the application of machine learning based models to time-domain astronomy.

FAUST – VIII. The protostellar disc of VLA 1623–2417W and its streamers imaged by ALMA

ABSTRACT More than 50 per cent of solar-mass stars form in multiple systems. It is therefore crucial to investigate how multiplicity affects the star and planet formation processes at the protostellar stage. We report continuum and C18O (2–1) observations of the VLA 1623–2417 protostellar system at 50 au angular resolution as part of the ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) Large Program FAUST. The 1.3 mm continuum probes the discs of VLA 1623A, B, and W, and the circumbinary disc of the A1 + A2 binary. The C18O emission reveals, for the first time, the gas in the disc envelope of VLA 1623W. We estimate the dynamical mass of VLA 1623W, Mdyn = 0.45 ± 0.08 M⊙, and the mass of its disc, Mdisc ∼ 6 × 10−3 M⊙. C18O also reveals streamers that extend up to 1000 au, spatially and kinematically connecting the envelope and outflow cavities of the A1 + A2 + B system with the disc of VLA 1623W. The presence of the streamers, as well as the spatial (∼1300 au) and velocity (∼2.2 km s−1) offsets of VLA 1623W, suggests that either sources W and A + B formed in different cores, interacting between them, or source W has been ejected from the VLA 1623 multiple system during its formation. In the latter case, the streamers may funnel material from the envelope and cavities of VLA 1623AB on to VLA 1623W, thus concurring to set its final mass and chemical content.

Revisiting Collisional Dust Growth in Class 0/I Protostellar Disks: Sweep-up Can Convert a Few 10 M ⊕ of Dust into Kilogram Pebbles in 0.1 Myr

Recent observations suggest that the first stages of planet formation likely take place in the Class 0/I phase of young stellar object evolution, when the star and the disk are still embedded in an infalling envelope. In this study we perform grain coagulation calculations to investigate the very first stage of planet formation, the collisional growth of dust grains, in Class 0/I disks. We find that the slow increase in grain mass by high-velocity collision with much smaller grains (“sweep-up”) allows ∼50 M ⊕ of grains to grow well beyond the fragmentation barrier into ∼kilogram pebbles by the end of Class 0/I (0.1 Myr). We analyze the linear growth and saturation of sweep-up to understand our results quantitatively, and test whether the sweep-up outcome is sensitive to disk parameters and details of the grain coagulation model. The sweep-up pebble population could be important for planet formation, because they are less well-coupled to the gas (compared to the main population below the fragmentation barrier) and therefore more favorable to known mechanisms of dust clump formation (which initiate planetesimal formation). It also contains enough mass to form all planet cores, based on observational estimates of the planet mass budget. Our findings motivate future studies of grain growth and planetesimal formation in Class 0/I disks, including the subsequent evolution of this sweep-up population.

Population III star formation in an X-ray background: III. Periodic radiative feedback and luminosity induced by elliptical orbits

ABSTRACTWe model Pop III star formation in different FUV and X-ray backgrounds, including radiation feedback from protostars. We confirm previous results that a moderate X-ray background increases the number of Pop III systems per unit cosmological volume, but masses and multiplicities of the system are reduced. The stellar mass function also agrees with previous results, and we confirm the outward migration of the stars within the protostellar discs. We find that nearly all Pop III star systems are hierarchical, i.e. binaries of binaries. Typically, two equal-mass stars form near the centre of the protostellar disc and migrate outwards. Around these stars, mini-discs fragment forming binaries that also migrate outwards. Stars may also form at Lagrange points L4/L5 of the system. Afterwards, star formation becomes more stochastic due to the large multiplicity, and zero-metallicity low-mass stars can form when rapidly ejected from the disc. Stars in the disc often have eccentric orbits, leading to a periodic modulation of their accretion rates and luminosities. At the pericentre, due to strong accretion, the star can enter a red-supergiant phase reaching nearly Eddington luminosity in the optical bands (mAB ∼ 34 for a 100 M⊙ star at z = 6). During this phase, the star, rather than its nebular lines, can be observed directly by JWST, if sufficiently magnified by a gravitational lens. The ∼10 000 AU separations and high eccentricities of many Pop III star binaries in our simulations are favourable parameters for IMBH mergers – and gravitational waves emission – through orbital excitation by field stars.

Crescent-shaped Molecular Outflow from the Intermediate-mass Protostar DK Cha Revealed by ALMA

We report on an Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array study of the Class I or II intermediate-mass protostar DK Cha in the Chamaeleon II region. The 12CO(J = 2–1) images have an angular resolution of ∼1″ (∼250 au) and show high-velocity blueshifted (≳70 km s−1) and redshifted (≳50 km s−1) emissions, which have 3000 au scale crescent-shaped structures around the protostellar disk traced in the 1.3 mm continuum. Because the high-velocity components of the CO emission are associated with the protostar, we concluded that the emission traces the pole-on outflow. The blueshifted outflow lobe has a clear layered velocity gradient with a higher-velocity component located on the inner side of the crescent shape, which can be explained by a model of an outflow with a higher velocity in the inner radii. Based on the directly driven outflow scenario, we estimated the driving radii from the observed outflow velocities and found that the driving region extends over 2 orders of magnitude. The 13CO emission traces a complex envelope structure with arc-like substructures with lengths of ∼1000 au. We identified the arc-like structures as streamers because they appear to be connected to a rotating infalling envelope. DK Cha is useful for understanding characteristics that are visible by looking at nearly face-on configurations of young protostellar systems, providing an alternative perspective for studying the star formation process.

Inviscid protostellar disc ring formation and high-density ring edges due to the ejection and subsequent infall of material onto a protostellar disc

Abstract Discs of gas and dust are ubiquitous around protostars. Hypothetical viscous interactions within the disc are thought to cause the gas and dust to accrete onto the star. Turbulence within the disc is theorised to be the source of this disc viscosity. However, observed protostellar disc turbulence often appears to be small and not always conducive to disc accretion. In addition, theories for disc and planet evolution have difficulty in explaining the observed disc rings/gaps which form much earlier than expected. Protostellar accretion discs are observed to contain significant quantities of dust and pebbles. Observations also show that some of this material is ejected from near the protostar, where it travels to the outer regions of the disc. Such solid infalling material has a relatively small amount of angular momentum compared to the material in the disc. This infalling material lowers the angular momentum of the disc and should drive a radial flow towards the protostar. We show that the local radial accretion speed of the disc is proportional to the mass rate of infalling material onto the disc. Higher rates of infall onto the disc implies higher radial accretion disc speeds. As such, regions with high rates of infall of gas, dust, and pebbles onto the disc will produce gaps on relatively short timescales in the disc, while regions associated with relative low rates of infalling material will produce disc rings. As such, the inner edge of a disc gap will tend to have a higher surface density, which may enhance the probability of planet formation. In addition, the outer edge of a disc gap will act as a dust trap and may also become a site for planet formation. For the early Solar System, such a process may have collected O $^{16}$ -poor forsterite dust from the inner regions of the protosolar disc and O $^{16}$ -rich CAIs and AOAs from the inner edge regions of the protosolar disc, thereby constructing a region favourable to the formation of pre-chondritic planetesimals.

Magnetically regulated collapse in the B335 protostar?

Context. Whether or not magnetic fields play a key role in dynamically shaping the products of the star formation process is still largely debated. For example, in magnetized protostellar formation models, magnetic braking plays a major role in the regulation of the angular momentum transported from large envelope scales to the inner envelope, and is expected to be responsible for the resulting protostellar disk sizes. However, non-ideal magnetohydrodynamic effects that rule the coupling of the magnetic field to the gas also depend heavily on the local physical conditions, such as the ionization fraction of the gas. Aims. The purpose of this work is to observationally characterize the level of ionization of the gas at small envelope radii and to investigate its relation to the efficiency of the coupling between the star-forming gas and the magnetic field in the Class 0 protostar B335. Methods. We obtained molecular line emission maps of B335 with ALMA, which we use to measure the deuteration fraction of the gas, RD, its ionization fraction, χe, and the cosmic-ray ionization rate, ζCR, at envelope radii ≲1000 au. Results. We find large fractions of ionized gas, χe ≃ 1–8 × 10−6. Our observations also reveal an enhanced ionization that increases at small envelope radii, reaching values up to ζCR ≃ 10−14 s−1 at a few hundred astronomical units (au) from the central protostellar object. We show that this extreme ζCR can be attributed to the presence of cosmic rays accelerated close to the protostar. Conclusions. We report the first resolved map of ζCR at scales ≲1000 au in a solar-type Class 0 protostar, finding remarkably high values. Our observations suggest that local acceleration of cosmic rays, and not the penetration of interstellar Galactic cosmic rays, may be responsible for the gas ionization in the inner envelope, potentially down to disk-forming scales. If confirmed, our findings imply that protostellar disk properties may also be determined by local processes that set the coupling between the gas and the magnetic field, and not only by the amount of angular momentum available at large envelope scales and the magnetic field strength in protostellar cores. We stress that the gas ionization we find in B335 significantly stands out from the typical values routinely used in state-of-the-art models of protostellar formation and evolution. If the local processes of ionization uncovered in B335 are prototypical to low-mass protostars, our results call for a revision of the treatment of ionizing processes in magnetized models for star and disk formation.