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Protostellar Disk Formation and Early Evolution

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Abstract

This contribution describes the formation of circumstellar disks and their earliest evolutionary phases when self-gravity in the disk plays a crucial role in eliciting the transport of mass and angular momentum. We first discuss the formation of protostellar disks within the context of analytic infall-collapse solutions. We then discuss our efforts to understand the behavior of the newly formed disks. Our specific approach consists of performing a detailed analysis of a simplified model disk which is susceptible to the growth of a spiral instability. Using a combination of numerical simulation and semi-analytic analysis, we show how the dramatic early phase of mass and angular momentum transport in the disk can be explained by a second-order nonlinear process involving self-interaction of a dominant two-armed spiral mode.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109

    Fred C. Adams

  2. NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, 94720

    Gregory Laughlin

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  1. Fred C. Adams
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  2. Gregory Laughlin
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Adams, F.C., Laughlin, G. Protostellar Disk Formation and Early Evolution. Space Science Reviews 92, 23–38 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005241115899

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