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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
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Abstract

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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

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