Feedback Effects on Low-Mass Star Formation

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – Solar and Stellar Astrophysics

Scientific paper

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

20 pages, 20 figures

Scientific paper

Protostellar feedback, both radiation and bipolar outflows, dramatically affects the fragmentation and mass accretion from star-forming cores. We use ORION, an adaptive mesh refinement gravito-radiation-hydrodynamics code, to simulate the formation of a cluster of low-mass stars, including both radiative transfer and protostellar outflows. We ran four simulations to isolate the individual effects of radiation feedback and outflow feedback as well as the combination of the two. Outflows reduce protostellar masses and accretion rates each by a factor of three and therefore reduce protostellar luminosities by an order of magnitude. Thus, while radiation feedback suppresses fragmentation, outflows render protostellar radiation largely irrelevant for low-mass star formation above a mass scale of 0.05 M_sun. We find initial fragmentation of our cloud at half the global Jeans length, ~ 0.1 pc. With insufficient protostellar radiation to stop it, these 0.1 pc cores fragment repeatedly, forming typically 10 stars each. The accretion rate in these stars scales with mass as predicted from core accretion models that include both thermal and turbulent motions. We find that protostellar outflows do not significantly affect the overall cloud dynamics, in the absence of magnetic fields, due to their small opening angles and poor coupling to the dense gas. The outflows reduce the mass from the cores by 2/3, giving a core to star efficiency ~ 1/3. The simulation with radiation and outflows reproduces the observed protostellar luminosity function. All of the simulations can reproduce observed core mass functions, though they are sensitive to telescope resolution. The simulation with both radiation and outflows reproduces the galactic IMF and the two-point correlation function of the cores observed in rho Oph.

No associations

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for scientists and scientific papers. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

Feedback Effects on Low-Mass Star Formation does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Feedback Effects on Low-Mass Star Formation, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Feedback Effects on Low-Mass Star Formation will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-471027

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.