Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T15:18:31.769Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Circumstellar disk fragmentation and the origin of massive planetary companions, brown dwarfs, and very low-mass stars

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2020

M. B. N. Kouwenhoven
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematical Sciences, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, 111 Ren’ai Rd., Suzhou Dushu Lake Science and Education Innovation District, Suzhou Industrial Park, Suzhou 215123, P.R. China email: [email protected]
Yun Li
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy, School of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, P.R. China
D. Stamatellos
Affiliation:
Jeremiah Horrocks Institute for Mathematics, Physics & Astronomy, University of Central Lancashire, Preston PR1 2HE, UK
S. P. Goodwin
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S3 7RH, UK
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The low-mass end of the initial mass function remains poorly understood. In this mass range, very low-mass stars, brown dwarfs, and massive planets are able to form through a variety of physical processes. Here, we study the long-term evolution of disk-fragmented systems around low-mass stars, for the epoch up to 10 Myr (the typical lifetime of an embedded cluster) and up to 10 Gyr (the age of the Milky Way). We carry out N-body simulations to study the decay of disk-fragmented systems and the resulting end products. Our simulations indicate rapid decay and frequent physical collisions during the first 10 Myr. We find that disk fragmentation provides a viable mechanism for explaining hierarchical triple systems, the brown dwarf desert, single and binary brown dwarfs, and very low-mass binary systems in the solar neighbourhood.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
© International Astronomical Union 2020 

References

Kouwenhoven, M. B. N., Brown, A. G. A., Zinnecker, H., Kaper, L., & Portegies Zwart, S. F. 2005, A&A, 430, 137 Google Scholar
Kouwenhoven, M. B. N., Brown, A. G. A., Portegies Zwart, S. F., & Kaper, L. 2007, A&A, 474, 77 Google Scholar
Li, Y., Kouwenhoven, M. B. N., Stamatellos, D., & Goodwin, S. P. 2015, ApJ, 805, 116 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, Y., Kouwenhoven, M. B. N., Stamatellos, D., & Goodwin, S. P. 2016, ApJ, 831, 166 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stamatellos, D., & Whitworth, A. P. 2009, MNRAS, 392, 413 CrossRefGoogle Scholar